Linda Robertson - Shattered Circle

Lydia looked him up and down. “So it’s safe to say you don’t have a problem with wærewolves anymore?”

“Lydia,” Vilna warned.

Lydia ignored her. “Or is he acceptable because he’s your granddaughter’s man? Or because he’s not bothered by our magic? Maybe it’s because he’s especially powerful, being the Domn Lup and all.”

Demeter’s face was vibrantly red as she stepped closer to Lydia. Johnny had seen her worked up before, but not like this. Hunter looked from the older women to Johnny and her expression was clearly asking: Now what?

He shrugged. He hadn’t known Demeter ever had a problem with wærewolves; she’d always been good to him.

“Ladies.” Vilna put a hand on each of their shoulders. “Leave the past in the past because presently, we have to save Persephone.” She squeezed Lydia’s shoulder. “Are you capable of utilizing sorcery?”

“I can,” she answered defensively.

“Are you willing to use it?”

Lydia hesitated. “Yes.”

“Do I need to request an oath of you to keep you focused on the task at hand?”

Lydia pouted. “No.”

“Then we proceed with Demeter’s plan.” Vilna removed her hands from the other woman’s shoulders and nodded at Demeter. “Go on.”

Demeter stepped away from the Elder and stood before Persephone. For a long minute the room was silent.

“Demeter?” Hunter finally dared.

“She’s beginning to fade.”

“What?” Johnny asked, pushing closer.

“There are circles forming under her eyes. They weren’t there when I arrived.”

He crouched to inspect. She was right. “What does this mean?” he asked, voice tight.

“Time is not on our side or hers,” Vilna-Daluca said.

“We cannot risk severing the connection that guides her return,” Demeter said.

Concern had gripped Johnny’s gut, but this was getting worse by the minute. “Her return? She’s meditating . . . right?”

Demeter faced him. “It’s a meditation, but it’s also part astral travel.”

Remembering when he and Red had used Great El’s slate, and the meditation-like journey she had guided him through, Johnny wondered if they were different. He’d felt like he’d traveled to the center of his soul, not to some outward place.

“Astral travel. That’s projecting your spirit outward, like an out-of-body experience, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I’m confused. I thought meditation was inward,” he said.

She smiled at him. “Meditation often involves self-examination in the serenity you find inside your own soul. But the soul isn’t like the physical body, it is mobile in ways that do not involve the gravitational pull of this planet.”

He squinted at her. “Still confused.”

“There’s no up and down in the soul. There’s no left or right. No forward and backward. There is only the motion of the will. She doesn’t project out from her body. She projects out from her soul, into dimensions that do not exist in the reality we know.”

“Seriously?” Vilna-Daluca asked.

Demeter turned back to Seph. “She could do it since she was little. She creates a place and goes there. Totem animals have guided her through many lessons.”

“How little?” Vilna asked, incredulous.

“Seven or eight.”

“You mean she’s viator ?”

The accent Vilna placed on her last word made Johnny certain it was foreign. Italian or Latin if he had to guess.

Demeter said, “Virago.” After a pause she turned to Vilna and added, “She’s not an average witch. She is the Lustrata.”

“Someone is spoiling for a fight,” Lydia muttered.

“No,” Demeter said, not taking her eyes from the Elder. “I know she is, and I know that she wouldn’t simply get lost or stuck in a meditation. Some thing is keeping her there, keeping her spirit away from her body.”

“Do you know anything about her current totem? That could be helpful,” Hunter said.

Demeter shrugged and shook her head no. They all turned to Johnny.

He copied Demeter’s reaction. “She never talked specifics about her meditations. Would her totem not let her leave?”

“No, no.” Hunter clarified, “If she is being kept in a meditation against her will, it wouldn’t be her totem’s doing. But if we knew the name we could attempt to contact it to learn what was going on. Without a name to call to her exact totem we are not going to find it.”

“Good point. If I can touch her forehead,” Demeter said, “I can find her totem’s name.”

“Okay,” Hunter said. “So we are going to triangulate a circle of ley line energy around you and Persephone, then you break her circle and we contain it while you learn the totem’s name, and then meditate and contact it for advice. When you come out of your meditation, you’ll know what to do. Is that the plan?”

“Sounds good to me,” Demeter said.

“We might have to hold the ley energy a long time,” Lydia said.

“Are you able?” Vilna asked.

To Johnny’s eyes, Lydia looked worried, but she nodded. He wasn’t comfortable with the notion that, ultimately, he was entrusting Red’s safety to the frail-looking old woman’s ability to hold a ley line.

I stared at the throne, then at the handsome man kneeling beside it. This was all wrong, but I could not put my finger on why. Drowning in frustration, I could no longer see clearly as my eyes welled with tears. “I do not remember!”

He stood and enfolded me in warm, comforting arms. “Oh, my love, your memory will return. I am confident you will remember me soon.”

“But—”

He put a finger to my lips. “Shhhh.”

I almost protested, but let that idea go with a sigh.

His finger trailed to my cheek, wiping away my tears. “May I kiss you, my love?”

My feet wanted to retreat, but I held them rooted here. “You didn’t ask before,” I replied.

“You shied away before.”

I bit my lip, but did not offer an apology.

“I understand, love. You do not remember me. But those kisses I gave you earlier were not the type of kiss I want now. So I am asking . . . may I?” His eyes searched mine. Underneath the hope and adoration in his expression, there was a hint of sadness.

Pressing my lips to his was not an unpleasant notion, except for the doubts inexplicably clinging to my heart. Perhaps if I kissed him, the flame of familiarity would ignite and I could remember our love. Or maybe the unfamiliarity would redouble my misgivings. I weighed the options. “You may,” I said.

Aidon put his mouth to mine. It was a trembling kiss, like a first brush of lips. That he did not immediately take the liberty of a full-on, happily-married-for-many-years lip-lock made me soften to him. He at least understood my perspective.

When the kiss grew bolder, I did not resist. Though my eyes were closed I could feel warmth surging within me like summer sunshine. And yet . . . there was something arid about this warmth, something coarse scouring me like desert sand. Then his voice echoed through my mind, whispering, You are safe here. All will be fine. When he broke away, I believed those words and all my worries had faded.

“Too much?” he asked.

“No. Just right.”

He smiled. “More?”

All will be fine. I nodded.

This time, his tongue found mine. He tasted of blood oranges. His hands roamed, hot on my arms, teasing under my breast, tingling along my spine.

For an instant his lips left mine and he gestured at the regal furniture behind us. Even as I turned to see what had drawn his attention, the seats slid together, melding into something more like a chaise lounge than a throne. The air around us shimmered and black velvet curtains hung in a circle in midair, providing privacy. A single black marble pillar appeared beside the chaise, and a three-wick amber candle flickered atop it.