Нора Робертс - Blood Magick

He folded into the fog, lowered, hunched, formed into the wolf. Fin saw his sword in his mind’s eye, in its sheath in his workshop. And lifting his hand, held it.

Even as he called the others, called his circle, the wolf lunged.

But not at him, not at the man holding a flaming sword and burning with power. It lunged at the little dog quivering in the high grass.

“No!”

Fin leaped, swung. Then met, sliced only fog, and even that died away with the dog bleeding in the grass, his eyes glazed with shock and pain.

“No, no, no, no.” He started to drop to his knees. The hawk called; the horse trumpeted. Both struck out at the wolf that had re-formed behind Fin.

With a howl, it vanished again.

Even as he knelt, Branna was there.

“Oh God.” He reached down, but she took his hands, nudged them away.

“Let me. Let me. My strength is healing, and hounds are mine.”

“His throat. It tore his throat. Harmless, he’s harmless, but it went for him rather than me.”

“I can help. I can help. Fin, look at me, look in me. Fin.”

“I don’t want your comfort!”

“Leave it to her.” Connor crouched down beside him, laid a hand firmly on his shoulder. “Let her try.”

Already grieving, for he felt the life slipping away, he knelt in helpless rage and guilt.

“Here now, here.” Branna crooned it as she laid her hands on the bloodied throat. “Fight with me now. Hear me, and fight to live.”

Bugs’s eyes rolled up. Fin felt the dog’s heart slow.

“He suffers.”

“Healing hurts. He has to fight.” She whipped her gaze to Fin, all power and fury. “Tell him to fight, for he’s yours. I can’t heal him if he lets go. Tell him!”

Though it grieved him to ask, Fin held his hands over Branna’s. Fig ht .

Such pain. Branna felt it. Her throat burned with it, and her own heart stuttered. She kept her eyes on the eyes of the little hound, poured her power in, and the warmth with it.

The deep first, she thought. Mend and mend what was torn. In the cold field, the wind blowing, sweat beaded on her forehead.

From somewhere, she heard Connor tell her to stop. It was too much, but she felt the pain, the spark of hope. And the great grief of the man she loved.

Look at me, she told the dog. Look in me. In me. See in me.

Bugs whimpered.

“He’s coming back, Branna.” Connor, still scanning the field, still guarding, laid a hand on Branna’s shoulder, gave her what he had.

The open wound narrowed, began to close.

Bugs turned his head, licked weakly at her hand.

“There now,” she said gently. “Yes, there you are. Just another moment. Just a bit more. Be brave, little man. Be brave for me another moment.”

When Bugs wagged his tail, Fin simply laid his brow against Branna’s.

“He’ll be all right. He could do with some water, and he’ll need to rest. He . . .”

She couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop herself. She wrapped her arms around Fin, held him.

“He’s all right now.”

“I owe you—”

“Of course you don’t, and I won’t have you say it, Fin.” She eased back, framed his face with her hands. For a moment they knelt, the dog gamely wagging his tail between them.

“You should take him home now.”

“Yes. Home.”

“What happened?” Connor asked. “Can you tell us? We told Iona not to come. Christ, she’s driving her grandmother from the airport in Galway.”

“Not now, Connor.” Branna pushed to her feet. “We’ll get the details of it later. Take him home, Fin. I have some tonic that would do well. I’ll get it for you. But rest is all he really needs.”

“Would you come with me?” He hated to ask, to need to ask, but still feared for the little dog. “Look after him for just a bit longer, just a bit to be sure?”

“All right. Of course. Connor, you could ride Baru back, and take the hawks, take Kathel. I’ll be home soon.”

“Well, I—”

But Branna put her hand in Fin’s. She, Fin, and the little dog winked away together.

“Well, as I was saying.” Connor ran his fingers through his hair, looked up to where Fin’s hawk and his own Roibeard circled. He gave Kathel’s head a pat, then swung onto Baru. “I’ll just see to the rest.”

• • •

IN HIS KITCHEN, THE DOG SNUGGLED IN HIS ARMS, FIN TRIED to sort out what to do next.

“I should bathe this blood off him.”

“Not in there,” Branna said, all sensibilities shocked when he walked to the kitchen sink. “You can’t be washing up a dog in the same place you wash up your dishes. You must have a laundry, a utility sink.”

Though he didn’t see the difference, Fin changed directions, moved through a door and into the laundry with its bright white walls and burly black machines. Opening a cupboard, he reached for laundry soap.

“Not with that, for pity’s sake, Fin. You don’t bathe a dog with laundry soap. You’re wanting dish soap—the liquid you’d use for hand washing.”

He might have pointed out the bloody dish soap was under the bloody kitchen sink where he’d intended to wash the dog in the first place. But she was bustling about, pulling off her coat, notching it on a peg, pushing up her sleeves.

“Give me the dog; get the soap.”

Fine then, he thought, just fine. His brain was scattered to bits in any case. He fetched the soap, stepped back in.

“You’re doing fine,” she murmured to Bugs, who stared up at her with adoration. “Just tired and a little shaky here and there. You’ll have a nice warm bath,” she continued as she ran water in the sink. “Some tonic, and a good long nap and you’ll be right as rain.”

“What’s right about rain, I’ve always wondered.” He dumped soap in the running water.

“That’s enough—enough, Fin. You’ll have the poor thing smothered in bubbles.”

He set the bottle on the counter. “I’ve something upstairs—a potion—that should do for him.”

“I’ll get him started here if you’ll get it.”

“I’m grateful, Branna.”

“I know. Here now, in you go. Isn’t that nice?”

“He’s fond of the shower.”

With the dog sitting in the sea of bubbles looking, to Fin’s eye, ridiculous, Branna turned.

“What?”

“Never mind. I’ll get the tonic.”

“The shower, is it?” she murmured when Fin left, rubbing her hands over the dog. Bugs lapped at the bubbles, at her hand, and brought on a very clear image of Fin, wearing nothing but water, laughing as he held the dog in a glass-walled shower where the jets streamed everywhere and steam puffed.

“Hmmm. He’s kept in tune, hasn’t he? Still some of the boy in there though, showering with a dog.”

It amused her, touched her, which wasn’t a problem. It stirred her, which was.

Fin brought back a pretty bottle with a hexagon base filled with deep green liquid. At Branna’s crooked finger, he unstopped it, held it out for her to sniff.

“Ah, yes, that’s just what he needs. If you have a little biscuit, you’d add three—no, let’s have four—drops to it. It’ll go down easier that way, and he’ll think it a treat.”

Without thinking, Fin reached in his pocket, took out a thumb-sized dog biscuit.

“You carry those in your pocket—what, in case you or the dog here get hungry?”

“I didn’t know how long we’d be out,” he muttered, and added the drops.

“Set it down to soak in. We could use an old towel.”

He set off again, came back with a fluffy towel the color of moss.

“Egyptian cotton,” Branna observed, and smoothly lifted the dog out, bundled him up before he could shake.

“I don’t have an old towel. And it’ll wash, won’t it?”