Нора Робертс - Blood Magick

“Maybe between us, we’ll make one good one.”

She did her best—scrubbed, quartered, poured, tossed, sprinkled. And wished Boyle would get there to tell her if it looked right. On Fin’s shrug, she stuck it in the oven. Set the timer.

Then she drank wine and hoped while she and Fin studied Branna.

She’d pulled one of her clips from somewhere and scooped up her hair. The sweater she’d rolled to her elbows as she worked from book to computer and back again, as she scribbled notes, made calculations.

“What if she’s not done when the timer goes off?” Iona wondered.

“We’re on our own, as she’d skin us if we interrupted her now.”

“That’s it!” Branna slapped a hand on her notebook. “By all the goddesses, that’s it. It’s so fecking simple, it’s so bloody obvious . I looked right through it.”

She rose, strode back, poured a second glass of wine. “Anniversary. Of course. When else could it be?”

“Anniversary?” Iona’s eyes went wide. “Mine? The day I came, met you? But you said that hadn’t worked. The day I met Boyle? That anniversary?”

“No, not yours. Sorcha’s. The day she died. The anniversary of her death, and the day she took Cabhan to ash. That day, in our time, is when we end it. When we will. Not a sabbat or esbat. Not a holy day. Sorcha’s day.”

“The day the three were given her power,” Fin stated. “The day they became, and so you became. You’re right. It was right there, and not one of us saw it.”

“Now we do.” She raised her glass. “Now we can finish it.”

15

SHE FELT REVIVED, REENERGIZED. BRANNA ACTIVELY enjoyed preparing the meal—and Iona did very well with her end of it—enjoyed sitting around Fin’s dining room with her circle, despite the fact that the bulk of the dinner conversation centered on Cabhan.

Now, in fact, maybe because of it.

Because she could see it clear, how it could and would be done. The when and the how of it. Risks remained, and they’d face them. But she could believe now as Connor and Iona believed.

Right and light would triumph over the dark.

And was there a finer way to end an evening than sitting in the steaming, bubbling water of Fin’s hot tub drinking one last glass of wine and watching a slow, fluffy snowfall?

“You’ve been a surprise to me, Finbar.”

He reclined across from her, lazy-eyed. “Have I now?”

“You have indeed. Imagine the boy I knew building this big house with all its style and its luxuries. And the boy a well-traveled and successful man of business. One who roots those businesses at home. I wouldn’t have thought a dozen years back I’d be indulging myself in this lovely spot of yours while the snow falls.”

“What would you have thought?”

“Considerably smaller, I’d have to say. Your dreams grew larger than mine, and you’ve done well with them.”

“Some remain much as they were.”

She only smiled, glided her foot along his leg under the frothy water.

“It feels we could be in some chalet in Switzerland, which I like, but I wonder you didn’t put this in that room with all the windows, the way it’s situated so private and opening to the woods.”

He drank some wine. “I had that room built with you in mind.”

“Me?”

“With the hope one day you’d marry me as we planned, live here with me. And make your workshop there.”

“Oh, Fin.” His wish, and her own, twined together to squeeze her heart.

“You like the open when you work, the glass so you can look out, the feel of being out, is what appeals to you. Snug enough inside, but with that open to bring the out in to you. So the glass room facing the woods gives you the private and the open at once.”

She couldn’t speak for a moment, didn’t want her voice to shake when she did. “If I had the magicks to change what is, to transform them into what I’d wish them to be, it would be that, to live and to work here with you. But we have this.”

She set her wineglass in the holder, flowed over to him, to press body to body. “We have today.”

He skimmed a hand down her hair, down to where it dipped and floated over the water. “No tomorrows.”

“Today.” She laid her cheek against his. “I’m with you, you’re with me. I never believed, or let myself believe, we could have this much. Today is the world for me, as you are. It may never be enough, and still.” She drew back, just a little. “It’s all.”

She brushed his lips with hers, slid into the kiss with all the tenderness she owned.

She would give him all she had to give him. And all was love. More than her body, but through her body her heart. It had always been his, would always be, so the gift of it was simple as breathing.

“Believe,” she murmured. “Tonight.”

Sweetly, for with her practical bent she could forget the sweet, she offered the kiss, to stir, to soothe.

Her only love.

He knew what she offered, and knew what she asked. He would take, and he would give. And setting aside the wish for more, he would believe tonight was everything.

Here was magick in having her soft and yielding, her sigh warm against his cheek as they embraced. The heat rose through him, around him, with the snow a silent curtain to close out all the world but them.

He took her breasts, gently, gently, as he could still see in his mind the violent marks what shared his blood had put on her. He swore as her heart beat against his hand, he would never harm her, would give his life to keep her from harm.

Whatever came tomorrow, he’d never break the oath.

Her hands glided over him, and her fingers brushed against the mark he carried. Her touch, even so light, brought on a bone-deep ache there. A price he’d pay without question.

The water, a steady drumbeat in the hush of the night, swirled around them as their hands drifted under it to give pleasure.

Her breath caught, shaking her heart with the meeting of emotion and sensation, the rise of need and wonder.

How could tenderness cause such heat—a wire in the blood, a fire in the belly—and still have her wish to draw every moment into forever?

So when she straddled him, took him deep, and deep and deep, she knew she would never take another. Whatever the needs of the body, no other could touch her heart, her soul. Combing her fingers through his hair, she held his face as she moved over him so he could see her, see into her, and know.

On their slow climb, the swirling water glowed, a pool of light to bathe them and surround them. As they fell, holding tight, the light flowed out against the dark to illuminate the soft curtain of snow.

Later, lax and sleepy in his bed, she curled against him. As tonight became tomorrow, she held fast to what she loved.

• • •

IT TOOK MORE PRECIOUS DAYS BEFORE BRANNA COULD acquire all the ingredients, in quantities to allow for experimenting, needed for the poison.

Connor looked on as she sealed them in individual jars on her work counter.

“Those are dangerous, Branna.”

“As well they need be.”

“You’ll take precautions.” His face only went stony when she shot him a withering glance. “So you always do, I know full well. But I also know you’ve never worked with such as this, or concocted such a lethal brew. I’ve a right to worry about my sister.”

“You do, but you needn’t. I’ve spent the days waiting for all of this to arrive to study on them. Meara, take him off, would you? The pair of you should be off to work, not hovering around me.”

“If we can’t use the stuff until near to April,” Meara argued, “can’t you wait to make it?”

“As Connor’s so helpfully pointed out, I’ve never done this before. It may take some time to get it right, and I might even have to send out for more before we’re sure of it. It’s a delicate business.”