Panting to catch her breath, she turned and looked behind her.
Bahru was nowhere in sight.
Then she straightened, rolled her eyes at her own panic and realized how ridiculous that thought was. As if Bahru would be chasing her through the snow in his flowing robes and sandals. What the hell was wrong with her? She started walking again, limping due to the hitch in her side.
His eyes flashed, dammit. And not for the first time.
Come on, Lena, her logical side argued. You know magic isn’t about special effects and flashing eyes. It’s about focus and will.
That chalice sure is a special-effects machine, though. I mean, it’s not like any sort of actual scrying I’ve ever experienced before, not mental images but real ones, real visuals and an almost time-travel sort of effect, the way it sucked me in. What about that, huh?
Well, what if you hallucinated that, too?
She reached the house, breathless, mounted the steps and stumbled inside to find her mom and Ryan in the living room, holding mugs of cocoa, smiling and apparently in the middle of a conversation—until they looked her way. Selma pressed her fingers to her lips and her eyes widened. Ryan slammed his mug on the coffee table and crossed the room in two long strides, his arms going around her shoulders fast, as if he thought she was on the verge of collapse.
“What happened? Are you okay?” He helped her to the sofa and lowered her onto it.
“Where were you?” Selma asked, bending over her. “Hell’s bells, your face is as red as a beet!”
“I’m fine.” Lena tried to straighten, but her mother pressed her down onto her back, while Ryan moved to her feet to pull off her boots.
“Guys, really, I’m fine. I just...I spooked myself and ran a little, which is really not a great idea when you’re carrying a watermelon in your belly.”
“I’ll get you some water,” Selma said. “Or tea. Yes, tea.”
“Some of that cocoa you guys are drinking sounds better.” She tried to inject some lightness into her tone, but Selma still looked worried as she hurried to the kitchen.
Ryan helped her sit up, his arm wrapping around her, and it was so much like an embrace that her heart tripped over itself in response. Stupid, if he was just going to stab her later. And yet she couldn’t help herself.
It would be wonderful, really, if all this really were due to some kind of hormone-induced mental lapse. Women went crazy from hormones sometimes, right? Postpartum psychosis was real enough. Women heard voices, believed them, did terrible things. Not that she would ever—could ever—harm her daughter. But still, it happened. So what about prepartum delusion? Was that even a thing?
She let Ryan peel off her coat, and then he lowered her back down and took the boots and jacket away. He set the boots by the door, hung the jacket on one of the hooks there. Selma was rattling things in the kitchen.
“So what spooked you?” he asked.
Lying, sneaking, they just didn’t suit her, despite her actions last night. “I was talking to Bahru, and I swore I saw his eyes glow red. Just for a second. But it seemed so real. And in that dream I had, that nightmare vision thing, everyone’s eyes were glowing red, and it scared the hell out of me.”
He frowned hard. “That dream where I’m going to stab you?”
She nodded. “Yeah. That was what I went out there to talk to him about. I thought he might have some...insight.”
“And did he?”
She pressed her lips together and swallowed hard. “He thinks I’ve gone mental due to stress and hormones.”
Ryan lowered his chin, sighed soft and deep.
“You agree with him?”
He met her eyes, and his seemed...angry? No, that wasn’t it. Intense. No, not that, either. Something she hadn’t seen in them before. And then he said a single word that shocked her right to her toes. He said, “No.”
“No?”
“No, Lena, I don’t think you’re mental. I think there’s something going on here, and I’m damn well going to find out what.” And then his face softened. Way softened. His eyes were swimming, and he stroked her hair up off her face and back behind her ear. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Okay? She was baffled. If he was planning to kill her, why wouldn’t he agree with Bahru and try to convince her that she was having a preggo-induced nervous breakdown? And why was he looking at her now just the way she’d been dreaming he would look at her since the day they’d first met—in this lifetime, at least?
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
He put his hand on her belly. “How about you, Peanut? You okay, too?”
The baby kicked, right on cue. And Ryan’s face lit up like a kid’s on Christmas morning. His smile was full and genuine, and his eyes gleamed. Not in a demonic way, like Bahru’s had, but in a beautiful way. “It’s like she’s answering me.”
“Maybe she is. She’s a witchling, after all.”
He met her eyes, his smile fading slowly. “Thank you, Lena. I haven’t said it, but...thank you.”
Lena blinked. “For what?”
“For this.” He ran his hand over her belly. “You didn’t have to keep her. It’s just now hitting me how hard this must have been on you physically, to say nothing about—”
“It’s not hard, Ryan. It’s...magical. And blissful. And beautiful. I’m in love with her already, and she’s not even here yet.”
“I am, too.”
Oh my Goddess, she thought. I believe him. He loved their baby. She no longer had any doubt about that. But what about me? her heart cried. How do you feel about me?
Her mother came in with the cocoa, looked at them briefly, and then the worry in her eyes evaporated. “Here you go, honey.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Lena blew on the top of the mug, then took a tentative sip.
“Ryan was just saying he was ready to show us the nursery,” her mother said. “Weren’t you, Ryan?”
“I just have to pick up a few drop cloths. There’s no furniture yet, no curtains, but I can’t wait for you to see it.”
Lena stared at him with what felt like puppy-dog eyes as he backed away and darted up the stairs like an excited kid. God, she loved him.
Please don’t let him be planning my murder!
As soon as he was gone, she turned to her mother. “I want you to do something for me as soon as Ryan and I go upstairs.”
She frowned. “What, honey?”
“His truck keys are in that coat pocket.” Lena pointed at Ryan’s big fleece-lined denim coat, hanging on the hook beside her own. “Take them. Go out there and look under the front seat, driver’s side. Tell me what you find there.”
Her mother’s frown deepened. “What do you think I’m going to find there, Lena?”
“An ancient ritual dagger tucked inside an ornate wooden box. The box looks a lot like the one my chalice came in.” That was the first time she’d put those bits of information together in her mind, she realized. And since the two tools were intimately connected, there must be something there, something more for her to mull on. But first she had to be sure the knife was really there.
“Either it’s real and he’s hiding it from me for some reason, or I imagined or dreamed it was there. I need to know which it is. Please?”
Selma’s concerned eyes searched Lena’s face. “Are you sure you’re okay, hon?”
“I honestly don’t know, Mom.”
Ryan came back downstairs and held out his hand toward her. “Ready?”
Lena nodded and started to get up, but before she made it to her feet he jumped over the coffee table and grabbed her hands to help. Something had changed in him. She was sure of it. He led her to the stairs, and they started up. She spared her mom a parting look full of meaning, and Selma gave a firm nod. She would do what Lena had asked her to do
.
Then Lena turned her focus to the nursery door, which was standing slightly ajar. They reached it, and Ryan pushed it wide and opened one arm with a flourish. “Ta-da!”
Her jaw dropped, and she clapped her hand to her mouth in surprise. The walls were green on the bottom, yellow on the top, with a row of turtles stenciled along the middle where the two colors met, each and every one of them unique. Some were smiling, some looking up, some down, some had tufts of hair or whimsical ponytails, one wore glasses. One wall also sported larger animals. A happy elephant and a tall giraffe. The elephant had painted its toenails red, and the giraffe wore a necktie. He’d added a playful monkey wearing tennis shoes, and a prancing zebra with a laughing little cartoon girl on its back. She had wild red curls and big green eyes.
Her own eyes filled. “Oh, Ryan...”
“Do you like it?” he asked, almost nervously.
“It’s wonderful.” She moved closer to the wall, soaking up the details. A palm tree in the corner, fronds extending to either side, bananas and pineapples and coconuts all growing from it, and a brightly colored toucan on one limb. Tall grasses extended from the floor to waist height, and as she looked more closely, she saw a pair of lion cubs at play there. “You did all this by hand, in just two days’ time?”
“Yeah, I’ve been on fire.”
As she turned to stare at him in wonder, he moved around the room. “I figured the crib could go here, by the window. Sunshine is supposed to be good for babies, right? And see, I already set a hook in the ceiling. One of your books says that every child’s room should have a crystal prism in the window, so I thought we’d find a really amazing one and hang it right there, over the crib. But on the foot end, not over her head, so it can’t fall and bop her on the noggin,” he added quickly.
He moved to another spot. “My mother’s antique rocking chair can go here, if you want. It’s still in Dad’s house. It’s the one she rocked me in.” He turned to the third wall. “We’ll put a dresser over there, maybe a changing table. There’s still space left, but I don’t know what else we might need, or—” He’d turned to face her again as he went on and stopped suddenly, tilting his head to stare at her. “You’re crying!”
Her stupid face just crumpled, and she nodded as jerky sobs tore through her heaving chest.
“Why? Is it the color? ’Cause we can change—”
She hurled herself against him, wrapping her arms around him, mashing her tear-wet face to his chest and her bulging body to his solid one. His arms came around her, strong and soothing, as she proceeded to soak his shirt with her tears. She couldn’t talk. She heard her mother come in, heard her delighted gasp and almost breathless, “Oh, my!”
“You like it?” Ryan asked.
“Oh, Ryan, I had no idea,” Selma said. “This is amazing!”
Lena nodded, so he would know that she agreed, then sniffled and tried to look up at him. “It’s even better than I could have imagined.”
He seemed relieved and hugged her closer, one hand in her hair. “You had me worried.”
“She was probably knocked speechless with surprise and sheer joy,” Selma said. “Ryan, if you hang around us a while, I’ll help you learn how to tell happy tears from sad ones from furious ones, okay?”
“That would be extremely helpful.” There was laughter in his voice.
“And by the way, Lena dear,” her mother went on. “You know that bracelet you lost, the one you asked me to look for?”
Sniffling, Lena lifted her face from Ryan’s chest and looked her mother’s way, wiping her cheeks with the back of one hand. She was terrified her happiness was about to take a nosedive.
“I looked right where you told me you thought it might be, and there wasn’t anything there.”
“Nothing?” Lena blinked in surprise.
“Not a thing, honey.”
Bahru was right. She had been stressed out. And it had been awfully late when she’d gone out to look under the seat. Very late. Maybe she had dreamed the entire thing, or even sleep-walked out to the truck and imagined seeing the knife of her nightmares there.
Worse things had happened to stressed-out, hormone-flooded women.
And that meant...that meant that she could believe...this. She could relish this. She looked up at Ryan’s face, vaguely aware of her mother backing out of the room.
“I’m going to the grocery store now,” Selma said, pausing in the doorway. “I’ll be...a while.” She pulled the door closed.
Ryan looked right back at Lena, and then he bent and met her lips with his. Everything inside her was shouting I love you, I love you, I love you! It was hard to imagine he couldn’t hear her on some level.
Then he scooped her up into his arms and carried her, somehow making her feel tiny and light, into his room and laid her down on the bed. He closed the door softly, turned the lock and lay down beside her, kissing her again. The kiss grew hotter, their tongues entwining, mouths open, as if he’d been as starved for her as she had been for him. Her blood heated, and rushed faster and faster through her veins as her heart galloped. Eagerly, she unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it down off his shoulders. And her hands ran over his skin, his hard shoulders and delicious corded neck, and she moved her face over it, too, tasting him, inhaling him. It had been so long. She wanted to drink him into her.
He lifted her blouse over her head, but she caught the bottom edge and pulled it back down. He covered her hand with his own. “I want to look at you.”
“Like this? Ryan, I’m—”
“You’re like a rare fruit, all ripened and ready to fall from the tree. You’ve never been more beautiful, I’ve told you that. I want to see you. I want to see you all full of my baby.”
Blinking, still self-conscious, she nodded and let go of the blouse. Ryan tugged it up over her head. Then he peeled off her bra and tossed it to the floor as his eyes roamed her breasts and darkened with appreciation. “Wow.”
“Yeah. I know. Two cup sizes, and they tell me once she gets here, I’ll go up another one.”
He smiled. “And you didn’t want to show me this?” He caressed her heavy breasts, kissed them, gentle, easy. He pushed her pants down and she kicked them off, and then he was running his hands over her belly, kissing it all over. Eventually he shifted and lay on his side next to her, head propped on one elbow, his free hand tracing her body up and down. “I wish I were an artist,” he said. “I’d paint you just like this. You’re amazing.”
Then he kissed her again, and again, and again. And it was beautiful and amazing, and she wanted him inside her. She wanted to make love. But he didn’t. He just kissed her and caressed her, and continued to rub her all over. “It’s so close to your due date,” he said. “I don’t want to do anything to hurt the baby. Would it? If we...?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t had any reason to ask.” His hands, rubbing circles on her lower back, were absolute heaven. His touch, the tone of his voice, the look in his eyes, everything was light-years beyond what they had been before she’d left him.
It was happening, she thought. He was falling in love with her. Right there, right then, she was watching this man fall in love with her.
“I can wait for the sex,” he whispered. “But I want you to know it’s killing me.”
“I think that’s for the best—and it’s killing me, too.”
“But I can hold you, kiss you. I can touch you.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “And maybe we can stay right here for the next two weeks, until the baby comes.”
“That’s okay by me.”
It was good. Lena’s entire being told her that it was good. Everything was good. It was all going to be fine. Not only was Ryan not hiding a ritual dagger or planning to kill her with it, he was starting to embrace his emotions, to let them escape through the widening crack
s in his armor. He was becoming that prince she’d loved lifetimes ago. And it was only a matter of time before he loved her as much as she loved him. Only a matter of time.
* * *
They spent the day putting together the crib Ryan had brought home. Yellow and green, with a matching dresser. They took the musical mobile Selma had found ages ago and attached it to the head of the crib, then wound it up to let it play its tinkling version of Brahms’s Lullaby, watching as a herd of colorful stuffed animals—elephants, giraffes, hippos...all with wings—swirled and spun. Lena brought out the boxes full of baby clothes she and Selma had been collecting for the past six months, and started putting them away in the little dresser. It was truly a beautiful set, she thought. They even put a sheet on the crib mattress and laid a receiving blanket on top, ready and waiting for someone to swaddle.
Lena looked around, her throat tight, her eyes moist, as they had been for most of the day. “This makes it all so...so real.”
“I know what you mean,” Ryan said.
“We still need curtains. And an electrician to install the light fixture.”
“And a crystal prism to hang in the window. And my mother’s rocking chair.”
“And diapers and bottles and—”
“We need to shop.” He grinned at her, apparently in love with the prospect.
She pressed her hand to the small of her back. “Tomorrow, okay? I’m about all-in tonight.”
He nodded, then slid his arms around her and ran his big, warm hand up and down her back. All her breath whispered out of her, and she leaned in, resting her head against his chest. “That feels so good.”
“Then I’ll keep doing it.”
And he did, for a little while, until she lifted her head and said, “I smell something fabulous.”
“Thank you. I haven’t showered since this morning, but it’s good to know my natural musk—”
She batted him playfully. “I mean from the kitchen, but we’ve been messing around up here all day.”
And they had been. They’d lain around in bed, making out like a couple of high school kids. He’d given her a full-body massage. And then they’d played in the baby’s room for hours, talking and laughing and planning.
Daughter of the Spellcaster Page 21