Нора Робертс - Blood Magick

He stood in a ragged jacket and sweater more ragged yet, jeans giving way at one knee and boots that had seen far better days. His hair mussed and windblown around the cool expression on his face.

It only egged on her own temper he could look so bloody sexy.

“I’m not angry with you.”

“You’ve an odd way of showing your cheerful feelings then, as you’ve been in and out of the house twice and said not a word to me.”

“I’m buying a couple more hacks for the guideds and working a deal on selling one of the young hawks to a falconer. It’s my business, one that keeps all this running, and I came in and up to my office so I wouldn’t be talking terms in front of the hands and the young girl in for her afternoon lesson.”

He tipped the beer toward her, then drank. “If it’s all the same to you.”

“It’s all the same, and still the same I’m saying to take your temper somewhere else. It’s a bloody big house.”

“I like them big.” He walked over, stood on the other side of the island. “I’m not angry with you, so don’t be a fecking idjit.”

She felt the very blood kindle under her skin. “A fecking idjit is it now?”

“It is from where I’m standing.”

“Then if you insist on standing there, it’s me who’ll go elsewhere.” She slapped down the peeler, shoved back, and got halfway to the doorway before he took her arm.

She gave him a jolt that would’ve knocked him back to the opposite side of the room if he hadn’t been ready for it. “Cool yourself down, Branna, as I’ve been working on doing these past hours.”

Her eyes were smoke, her voice a fire simmering. “I won’t be called an idjit, fecking or otherwise.”

“I didn’t say you were, only advised you not to be.” His tone was cool as January rain. “And for the third time, I’m not angry with you. And rage is too tame a word for what I hold in me for him, for the bastard who put his hands on you.”

“He poisoned Connor, near to killed Meara, and Iona, he’s burned Boyle’s hands black and laid you out on my kitchen floor. But you’re more than raged because he now knows the shape of my teats?”

He took her shoulders, and she saw now he spoke the truth. What lived in his eyes was more than rage. “Battle wounds, and fair or foul they’re won in battle. This wasn’t any of that. You’ve only just let me touch you again, and he does this? You can’t see the deliberation, the timing? Doing this so you’d think of my blood, of my origins when next I want to touch you?”

“That’s not—”

“And you can’t see, can’t think with that clever brain that he had contact with you? Physical contact, and with it might have pulled you out of the here and now to where he willed?”

She started to speak, then held up both hands until he released her. And she went back, sat again. “You can call me a fecking idjit now, as I’ve earned it. I didn’t think of either, but I can see it clear enough now. I didn’t think of the first, as you have nothing to do with what he did, what he tried to do to me. I wouldn’t think of him when you touched me, Fin. That’s where you have it wrong. He meant you to think it, and there it seems he succeeded.”

She reached for his beer, then shook her head. “I don’t want beer.”

Saying nothing, he turned, took the wine stopper out of the bottle of Pinot Noir she’d used in the marinade. When he poured her a glass, she sipped slowly.

“As for the second, I’m well rooted. He may think he has enough to pull me when and where he wills. I can promise you he doesn’t. I took precautions there when he tried luring Meara, and we fully understood how he can shift in time. You can trust me on this.”

“All right.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Just that?”

“It isn’t enough?”

“He meant to frighten and humiliate me, and did neither. Perhaps he did also mean to twist my sensibilities so I wouldn’t want your touch, but he failed there as well. But he appears to have well succeeded in enraging you. This he understands, the rage. You’re bedding me now, and you won’t have me touched by another.”

“It’s not that, Branna.” Calmer—marginally—he shoved his fingers through his hair. “Well, not just that. It’s what touched you.”

“He’d only understand the possession. He’d never understand your remorse, your guilt, for no matter how many times you show him you reject his part of you, it’s all he sees there. He can’t see past your blood. You must. We all must. I do or however I felt about you, I couldn’t have let you touch me.”

“It’s his blood I want. I want it dripping from my hands.”

“I know it.” Understood it, she admitted, and had felt the same herself more than once. “But that’s vengeance, and vengeance won’t defeat him. Or not vengeance alone, for whatever we are, we’re human, too, and he’s more than earned that thirst from us.”

“I can’t be calm about it. I don’t know how you can be.”

“Because I looked in his eyes today, closer than you are now to me. I felt his hands burning cold on me. And it wasn’t fear running through me. It has been; there’s been fear mixed in, even with the power so full and bright. But not today. We’re stronger, each one of us alone, stronger than he is, even with what’s in him. And together? We’re his holocaust.”

He skirted the counter, laid his hands on her shoulders again. Gently now. “We must stop him this time, Branna, whatever it takes.”

“And I believe we will.”

Whatever it takes, he thought again, and brushed his lips to her brow. “I need to keep you from harm.”

“Do you think I need protection, Fin?”

“I don’t, no, but that doesn’t mean I won’t give it. It doesn’t mean I don’t need to give it.”

He kissed her brow again.

Whatever it takes.

• • •

HE HAD BUSINESSES TO RUN, AND THE WORK DIDN’T WAIT until it was convenient for him. Ledgers had to be balanced, calls had to be made or returned, and it seemed there was forever some legal document to read and sign.

He’d learned early that owning a successful business required more than the owning of it, and the dream. He could be grateful Boyle and Connor handled the day-to-day demands—and all the paperwork, time, and decision-making on the spot that engendered. But it didn’t leave him off the hook.

Even when he traveled, he stayed keyed in—via phone or Skype or email. But when he was home, he felt obliged to get his hands dirty. That held the pleasure of grooming horses as he prized that physical contact and mental bond. More than using a currycomb or hoof pick, the grooming or feeding or exercising gave him an insight into each horse.

Nor did he mind cleaning up for the birds at the school or spending time carefully drying wet feathers. He’d gained a great deal of satisfaction in having a hand training the younger ones, and had found himself bonding particularly with a female they’d named Sassy—as she was.

Though the days grew slowly longer, there rarely seemed enough hours in them to do all he wanted or needed to do. But he knew where he wanted to be, and that was home.

Nearly a year now, he thought as he stood with Connor in the school enclosure, kicking a blue ball for Romeo, their office manager’s very enthusiastic spaniel. The longest straight stretch for him since he’d been twenty.

Business and curiosity and the need for answers would call him away again, but no more, he hoped, for months at a time. For the first time since the mark had come on him, he felt home again.

“I’m thinking the winter, and the slower demand, makes the best time to experiment with the hawk rides we talked of before.”

“We’d offer something more than special to those who come here for some adventure.” Connor gave the ball a kick, sent the dog racing. “I’ve worked out the pricing on it, should we give it a go, and Boyle grumbled as he does so it seemed in line.”