by Anne Bishop
Breanna took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “My primary branch of the Great Mother is air. Yours is earth. It would help to have fire and water as well if it comes down to a fight here.”
“Not everyone will break the creed. Even with what they know, with what they’ve seen.”
“I know.” Breanna tucked some strands of dark hair back into her loose braid. She looked at the bow in her hand. Even if they didn’t use their power as a weapon, there were still ways for the witches to fight back. “Do you know how to use a bow?”
Fiona made a rude noise. “Of course I do.”
“We might as well get some practice in before our ‘instructors’ show up to give us some practice.”
Fiona laughed, but there was an edge to it. “I imagine Baron Liam and Lord Falco just want to be sure you’re available and waiting so that you can protect them when they show up.”
“Protect them from what?” Now that Fiona had said that, she realized Liam did tend to stay close to her when he visited, and when he wasn’t with her, he spent his time with his mother Elinore, who, along with his little sister Brooke, was also living at Old Willowsbrook for the time being, or with her grandmother, Nuala. And Falco tended to head for any group of men if he couldn’t be with her. What would two adult men need protection from that they would behave that way?
Breanna felt laughter bubbling up, threatening to burst free. It was the look on Fiona’s face that made her force the laughter back. “Jean? You think they’re going to that much effort to avoid Jean? Mother’s tits, Fiona, the girl is only sixteen.”
“And flirts outrageously with anything in trousers that has a handsome-enough face.”
“All right,” Breanna said, uncomfortable with the anger rising in Fiona, “she flirts.”
“You make it sound as if she’s too young to think of men and beds,” Fiona said fiercely. “And perhaps she is too young to think of men in that way, but she’s already become a predator where men are concerned. She wants, and expects, male adoration. She wants, and expects, men to fulfill her every wish and whim.”
“Didn’t we all want that at that age?” Breanna asked cautiously. The anger and contempt in Fiona’s voice worried her as much as the word predator. “Didn’t we all want the romance of being special?” Don’t we still want that?
“You were never sixteen in that way. Neither was I. You never would have…” Fiona pressed her lips together until they were a thin, grim line. “She doesn’t always live by the creed when she feels slighted by a man’s lack of attention.”
A chill raced up Breanna’s spine. That spike of fear sharpened her voice. “What are you saying?”
“That Liam and Falco have a good reason to be wary of being alone with Jean—especially when it’s clear to everyone but Jean that neither of them are comfortable with her interest and don’t want to play the ardent lover.”
“You can’t be serious. You actually think she would use magic to harm them because they aren’t interested in her?”
Fiona nodded slowly. “Because they aren’t interested in her…and because they are interested in you.”
Breanna stared at Fiona, too stunned to speak.
“Oh, not in the same way. I don’t mean that,” Fiona continued. “But you’re the one they both inquire about first. You’re the one they look to in order to understand our way of life. Jean resents your ‘power’ over them because she wants it for herself.”
Breanna shook her head, not to deny what Fiona had said but because she still couldn’t accept that Jean might be a danger to Liam and Falco. It was one thing to consider breaking the witches’ creed in order to defend her family and home; it was quite another to break that creed and do harm simply because you could do it. “Have you any proof that Jean ever harmed a boy because he wasn’t sufficiently attentive?”
“Proof? No. Suspicions? Oh, yes. But she always acted the darling around the elders, and they wouldn’t believe sweet, pretty Jean has the heart of a cold-blooded bitch. There was nothing serious, you understand. Just little spiteful things that could have been easily explained as simple accidents if they hadn’t occurred soon after a boy she wanted showed a preference for another girl.” Fiona sighed. “I didn’t want her to come with us. Even knowing what she would have faced if she’d stayed, I didn’t want her to come with us. All during the journey, I was afraid she would do something that would call too much attention to us, make the guards in the villages we had to pass look too closely at where we were coming from. Make them look too closely at us.”
“But she didn’t do anything,” Breanna said. “Perhaps, with Nuala keeping an eye on her…”
Fiona shook her head. “I told you, the elders only saw what Jean wanted them to see—and that’s the face she shows to Nuala, too. Pretty, sometimes pouty in a teasing way, fluttery feminine Jean. She was fearful enough of the people the Inquisitors have turned against our kind to behave on the journey here, but the only reason she didn’t do anything more damaging back home was because…”
“Because?” Breanna prodded.
Fiona looked uncomfortable. Finally, she said, “She was afraid of Jennyfer. And she hasn’t stirred up much trouble here because she’s afraid of you.”
“Me? Whatever for?”
“You and Jenny…you’re…different…from the rest of us. I don’t mean that in a bad way, but…there’s a strength in both of you that runs so deep. A strength that comes from here.” Fiona shifted the quiver to her bow hand in order to press a fist against her heart. “I remember the last time you came to visit the family and stayed for the summer. Do you remember?”
“I remember,” Breanna said quietly.
“There was a brutal storm one night—wind fierce enough to uproot trees and rain that beat down hard enough to bruise skin. The rest of us huddled inside the house, but you and Jenny…I heard you sneak out of the room the three of us were sharing that summer. When I crept to the window and looked out, the two of you were outside in your nightgowns, dancing in that storm, celebrating it and…changing it. Air and water. You embraced that storm, took it into yourselves, made it part of your dance, gave it back as something gentler. You tamed a storm, Breanna. You and Jenny.” Fiona smiled. “The look on your face right now. As if I’ve suddenly started speaking some strange, incomprehensible language.”
“You are.” Breanna shook her head. She remembered that night. Remembered extending her hand at the same moment Jenny extended hers so that they stepped out into that storm with their hands linked, feeling the Great Mother’s power swirling around them, rushing into them while they danced. Yes, they had celebrated that storm, had acknowledged its strength, had connected to it in a way that had been so natural it had required no words, no thought. What was so strange about that?
They are deeply rooted in the Mother’s Hills.
She remembered overhearing one of the elders say that the morning after the storm. Since she had kin in the hills, she hadn’t thought it odd. But she also remembered that, while Fiona, Rory, and some of her other cousins had come here a few times to visit after that summer, she had never been invited back for a visit to their family homes. Except Jenny’s.
Confused and self-conscious—and irritated with herself and Fiona for feeling those things—she shrugged dismissively. “Let’s get some target practice.” I’m in the right mood to shoot something.
Breanna had taken only a couple of steps toward the kitchen gardens when a hawk flew overhead, screaming a warning as it passed by her. At the same moment, a boy from one of the farm families who had escaped with Breanna’s kin burst from the woods, running toward them as fast as he could.
“There’s a man in the woods!” the boy shouted. “A man wearing a black coat! Coming this way.”
“What were you doing in the woods?” Breanna snapped as soon as the boy stumbled to a halt in front of her. None of the children were supposed to go into the woods on their own. There were still some of those nighthunter creatures out there som
ewhere.
“Jean wanted to look for some plants,” the boy said, panting. “She told me I had to come with her since we weren’t supposed to go into the woods by ourselves and—” He glanced nervously at Breanna, then at Fiona. “And she didn’t want to ask one of the other witches to go with her.”
There wasn’t time to consider what kinds of plants Jean was looking for that made her not want the company of another witch—or what she intended to do with the plants if she found them.
“Go—” Breanna looked toward the stables. The men, warned by the hawk’s cries, were already in motion, saddling some horses, stabling others, gathering weapons that were always close at hand these days. “Go to the house. Warn Nuala. Go!”
As the boy raced for the house, Breanna and Fiona looked at each other.
“Get the children into the house,” Breanna said.
Fiona started to protest. Then she noticed Clay and her brother Rory hurrying toward them—and the hawk flying ahead of them. Nodding, she ran toward the children, who had stopped playing and were now anxiously watching the adults.
Trusting Fiona to take care of the children, Breanna set her quiver on the ground and grabbed a handful of arrows. She pushed the heads of four of them into the ground in front of her to make them easy to snatch if they were needed. The fifth she nocked in her bow, keeping her fingers light on the bowstring. Facing the woodland trail, she waited.
Sensing movement on her left, she started to draw the bow and turn when she realized it was Falco. He had changed from hawk to man, but he’d forgotten to use the glamour to hide the pointed ears and feral quality of the Fae behind the mask of a human face. Or else he had a reason for not hiding what he was.
“Black Coat?” Breanna asked softly.
Falco shook his head.
That would have been reassuring if Falco hadn’t looked uneasy, even nervous. Whoever was in the woods wasn’t an Inquisitor, but also wasn’t a friend.
She’d just turned back toward the trail when Jean ran out of the woods. The girl looked flustered, exhilarated. But not frightened.
When she was a few feet away from Breanna, Jean stopped running. She shook out her skirt, ran her hands over her hair to smooth it, licked her lips to wet them, and pinched her cheeks to bring more color to her face. “How do I look?”
Breanna stared at her. “Get in the house. There’s an intruder in the woods. Possibly an Inquisitor.”
“Is that what he told you?” Jean said, giving Falco a look that was equal parts pouty and scalding.
Any reservations Breanna had about Fiona’s suspicions and feelings were destroyed by that look.
“It isn’t an Inquisitor,” Jean said. “It’s a Fae Lord, and he’s so handsome.”
Breanna saw something cold and mean in Jean’s eyes when she realized Falco didn’t notice she now considered him an inferior specimen of a man.
“Breanna,” Falco said quietly.
Looking at the trail, Breanna saw the man coming out of the woods. He was handsome, with his black hair and fair skin. He was too far away to see the color of his eyes.
“Jean, get in the house,” she said quietly.
“So you can impress him?” Jean replied nastily. She gave the man a sweet smile of welcome.
The man stopped and gave Jean a long, considering look. When he resumed walking toward them, the look he gave Falco was as scalding as Jean’s had been.
“So this is where you’ve hidden yourself,” the man said harshly, stopping a few lengths away from them.
“This is where I live now,” Falco replied.
“Where you live? Have you forgotten what you are? Have you forgotten your duty to your Clan?”
“I’m needed here.”
“To do what? To be what? A witch’s pet?” The man looked angry, disgusted. “When they told me you were down here, playing the tame Fae, I told them they were wrong. I told them Falco knew his duty to his Clan, and if he was cozying up to a witch here, it was only to seduce her into trusting him. Then he would persuade her to go back to Brightwood with him, and we would have a witch again to anchor the magic, to hold the shining road open. We would have a witch again who would perform the duty to the Fae she was meant to perform and free my sister from the burden. That’s what I told them. Now I see they were right. You’ve abandoned your Clan, abandoned your own kind. For what? Does she even spread her legs for you, or are you so pale a man that you don’t even demand that much for whatever favors you bestow here?”
Incensed, Breanna raised her bow, drew back the bowstring, and took aim at the center of the man’s chest. “Who do you think you are?”
“Tell her,” the man commanded, pointing a finger at Falco.
Falco hesitated. Then he said, “This is Lucian. The Lord of the Sun, the Lord of Fire. The Lightbringer.”
Perhaps it was because the two men expected her to be intimidated, awed, maybe even frightened about confronting the male leader of the Fae that power rose in her as sharp, sizzling temper.
“Well, good for him,” Breanna said. “You may see the Lord of Fire, but all I see is an intruder I’m going to shoot if he doesn’t get off our land.”
“Breanna.” Falco sounded shocked, almost breathless.
“Breanna!” Jean said, sounding equally shocked. “How can you say such a thing to our guest?”
Mother’s tits! She’d forgotten about Jean. “I told you to get back to the house,” she said sternly. She didn’t like the calculating look on Lucian’s face, as if he were considering a filly he wanted to add to his stables.
“I’m not a child, Breanna,” Jean snapped. “You can’t—”
Breanna let power follow the path of temper. A wind suddenly whipped around Jean, turning the girl’s hair into a tangled mess and blowing her skirt up. Shrieking in dismay, Jean grabbed the front of the skirt, holding her arms down to prevent the men from seeing everything she wore—or didn’t wear—beneath her skirt.
Breanna drew the power back into herself. The wind died as quickly as it had appeared. “Get back to the house, Jean. Now.”
“You’ll pay for that, Breanna,” Jean said before running to the house.
Breanna’s arms were getting tired from keeping the bowstring drawn back for so long. But she didn’t dare ease back, didn’t dare give a moment’s appearance of yielding in any way. Not when Lucian was watching Jean run back to the house.
If the girl had stopped and talked with him in the woods, it would have taken so little effort on his part to convince Jean to go with him. A promised visit to Tir Alainn? Oh, Jean would have loved that. And then what? If he got her to Brightwood and then abandoned her, what would happen to her? What would happen to anyone living near that Old Place who had to deal with her? No matter how you turned that stone, there was a sharp edge that would cut someone. So she had to get him to leave and not come back.
But how?
“Listen to me, Fae Lord, and listen well,” Breanna said. “You aren’t welcome here. If you ever come back and try to persuade any of my kin to go with you—”
“What will you do?” Lucian snapped. “Shoot me?”
She heard a horse galloping toward her. A muffled sound. There was only one horse she knew that sounded like his hooves barely touched the ground, and that was Oakdancer. Which meant Liam was riding toward her. Fast.
“You won’t shoot me,” Lucian said sneeringly. “Do no harm. Isn’t that your creed?”
“That is our creed,” Breanna agreed. “But we make exceptions.”
That startled him. Unnerved him. He regained control quickly when he saw Liam rein in and dismount.
“This is no business of yours, human,” Lucian said.
Liam strode toward Breanna, stopping beside her. “I may be gentry, and I may be a baron, but”—as he yanked one of the arrows out of the ground and held it up, the top half of it burst into flames—“I’m also a Son of the House of Gaian, so any intruder on my sister’s land is my business.”
“Y
ou threaten me, the Lord of Fire, with fire?” Lucian laughed nastily.
The man had a point. Liam’s gift, which had come down to him through his mother, had awakened just recently. He could draw power from the branch of fire easily enough, but he still wasn’t adept at controlling it or extinguishing what he’d created.
Before this could turn into a pissing contest that would, most likely, burn down part of the Old Place if it didn’t kill someone outright, she lowered the bow, chose a new target, and released the arrow. Having an arrow go to ground between his feet startled Lucian.
Breanna took that moment to snatch the burning arrow out of Liam’s hand. Using her own connection to the branch of fire, she banked the flames as she drove the arrow into the earth, doing it so smoothly that not so much as a blade of grass caught fire.
When she straightened up, she noticed how warily Lucian watched her.
Not so sure of yourself now, are you? she thought. Well, she’d give him more reason to think twice about her.
“The House of Gaian created Tir Alainn out of dreams and will. We created the shining roads that anchor that land to the human world. If you, or any other Fae, try to force or seduce or remove any of my kin from Willowsbrook, I will gather the rest of my kin, both here and in the Mother’s Hills, and we will turn Tir Alainn into a wasteland. And then we will close the shining roads and leave you there.”
Lucian paled, staggered back a step. There was fear in his eyes now. “You couldn’t.”
“Oh, but we could. As I will…” Breanna let the words hang in the air. “I suggest you go back to your own world, Fae Lord, and let us be.”
“I’ll make sure he gets there,” Liam said quietly. Turning away, he mounted Oakdancer and waited.
Lucian stared at Falco, his expression cold and bitter. “You’ve made your choice, Falco. Don’t come crawling back to us when she turns on you. Her kind will always turn on you.”
He walked back into the woods, Liam following on Oakdancer.
Breanna watched them disappear into the trees. If the Lightbringer turned on Liam, would her brother be able to protect himself? Had she been a fool to make an enemy of so powerful a Fae Lord?