Нора Робертс - Blood Magick

“Not to me, not clear at all. What did we learn, Branna? Go back to it.”

She folded her hands on the table, deliberately, firmly, set emotion aside. “All right. Into the dark, thick woods, no moon or stars, great wind moaning through the trees.”

“A river. The rush of it somewhere behind us.”

“Yes.” She closed her eyes, took herself back. “That’s right, yes. The river behind, power ahead. The dark of it, and still we went toward it.”

“The cave. Cabhan’s lair, I know it.”

“We saw nothing of him.”

“I felt him, but . . . it wasn’t as it is now. Something else.” He shook his head. “It isn’t clear at all, but though I don’t know where we were, I sensed something familiar all the same. As if I should have known. Then the old man was there.”

“I didn’t know him.”

“Nor did I, but again it felt as if I should. We were too soon to see, he said, and too late to stop it. Riddles. Just fecking riddles.”

“A time shift, I’m thinking. We weren’t in the now, but not when we could know more. He called himself the sacrifice.”

“And the sire of the dark. He bled and bled. Mad and dying, but there was power in him. Fading, but there.”

“Cabhan’s sacrifice?” Branna wondered, then sat rod straight. “Cabhan’s sire?” she said even as she saw the same thought in Fin’s eyes. “Could it be?”

“Well, he was whelped from someone. Ah, Cabhan’s whelp, he called me, and you Dark Witch to be. He knew us, Branna, though we’d yet to be born in his time. He knew us.”

“He didn’t make Cabhan what he is.” She shook her head, let herself feel again what she’d felt. “There wasn’t enough in him for that. But . . .”

“In the cave, there was more.” Calmer now, Fin relaxed the hand he’d fisted on the table. “Did the old man conjure more than he could deal with, bring the dark in, give it a source?”

“Cabhan’s blood—his sire. And the sire’s blood spilling out. His life spilling onto the ground. In sacrifice? God, Fin, did Cabhan kill his own father, sacrifice his own sire to gain the dark?”

“It must be blood,” Fin murmured. “It must always be blood. The dark demands it; even the light requires it. Too soon to see. If we had stayed, would we have found him, just coming into the power he has? Just coming in, and not fully formed?”

“It happened then, as the old man lay dying. It erupted, didn’t it, heaving us back, breaking whatever spell had taken us. And it was cold, do you remember, did you feel? It was brutally cold for an instant before it was done, and I woke in my own bed.”

Fin pushed up, restless, pacing. “He couldn’t have wanted us there—Cabhan. Couldn’t have wanted us anywhere near his lair, or to have us gain any knowledge of his origin.”

“If we’ve the right of it.”

“He didn’t bring us there, Branna. Why would he? The more we know, the more we can use to end him. Other powers you said. And I say other powers sent us there, whether those powers are without or within us.”

“Why only we two? Why not the six of us?”

“Dark Witch to be, Cabhan’s whelp?” He shrugged. “You know very well you can’t always logic out magicks. We need to go back, learn more.”

“I’m not after having sex with you so we can travel back in time to Cabhan’s cave.”

“But you’d give your life for it.” He waved her off before she could speak. “I don’t want sex as a magickal tool, even with you. And I want to be full in control on the next journey, not taken by other forces or means. I have to think on it.”

“I’ll have your oath.”

“What?” Distracted, he glanced back, watched her rise from the table, her hair long, loose, a bit wild. Her eyes somehow calm and fierce at once.

“Your oath, Finbar. You won’t go back alone. You won’t move on this without me, without our circle. You aren’t alone and won’t act alone. Your word on it, here and now.”

“Do you see me so reckless, so hell-bent on my own destruction?”

“I see you as I did on Samhain when you would have left our circle and safety to go after Cabhan alone, even at the risk of never coming back to your own place and time. Do you think so little of us, Fin? So little you’d step away and leave us behind?”

“I think everything of you, and the others, but he’s my blood, not yours.” The words held a bitter taste, but were all truth. “And still I won’t act alone. I won’t because if I go wrong I’d risk you, and the others. Everything.”

“Your hand on it.” She held out her own. “Your hand on it, to seal the oath.”

He took her hand in his. Light streamed out between their fingers, sizzled and snapped like a wick just fed the flame.

“Well. Well, now,” he said quietly. “That hasn’t happened in some time.”

She felt the heat, the spread of it through her—both comfort and torment. Would it grow, she wondered, if she moved to him, if she reached for him?

She drew her hand from his, stepped back.

“I need to tell the others before they scatter for the day. You’re welcome to come.”

“You’ll deal with it.” And he needed some distance from her. “I’ve things to do.”

“All right then.” She started back, him with her, to his front door. “I’ll be working with Iona today, and we’ll see what we can do. It might be best for us to meet, all of us, but not tonight. A little time more to sort through it all. Tomorrow night if it suits you.”

“You’ll be cooking.”

“My lot in life.”

He wanted to run his hand over her hair, just feel it as he’d felt it in the dream. But he didn’t touch her. “I’ll bring wine.”

“Your lot in life.” She stepped through the door when he opened it for her, then turned, stood for a moment with the morning mists around her. “You’ve built a good house, Fin. Handsome for certain, but it has a fine, strong feel to it.”

“You’ve seen hardly more than the kitchen.”

“Well now, that’s the heart of a home. If you could come tomorrow at around three, we could work before the others come for supper.”

“I’ll work it out, and be there.”

He waited while she walked to her car, surprised when she stopped, looked back again with a quick, saucy smile.

“I should’ve mentioned, your skin’s not far off from rose petals, but in a manly way, of course.”

When he laughed, the tension in his belly eased even as she drove away from him.

5

AFTER BRANNA TOLD HER TALE, ASKED HER CIRCLE TO think on its meanings, she put in another request.

“I’d like the house cleared of men tonight, if you don’t mind, and to spend it with my women here, with wine and paint samples and such. If you could do me a favor, Connor, Boyle, would you invade Fin’s house, and stay there? Do whatever men do with an evening free of females. I don’t want to know what that might be.”

When Connor hesitated, she drilled her finger in his belly. “And don’t be after thinking the three of us need the protection of men. Two of us are witches same as you, and the other could kick your arse into next week if you riled her.”

“I take pains not to rile her. All right then. What do you say, Boyle, we’ll drag Fin off to the pub, then stagger back to his place?”

“I’m for it. He’ll want the company, I expect,” he said with a glance at Branna.

“Want it or not, he needs it. I’ll be in the workshop. Iona, when you’re done here, I’ll put you to work.”

“I’ll be here by six,” Meara told her, and waited until Branna left the room. “A terrible hard thing for both of them. I don’t know how they stand up to it. So let’s give them some fun and ease tonight at least.”