Cassidy... There had been a time when he would’ve done anything for his daughter. And now Echo...
He couldn’t love her. It would complicate everything.
“Like any addict,” she continued, “I suspect this will lead to an early death for you if you don’t...let it go.”
“Most likely,” he admitted.
“Lock the dark away,” she whispered. “Give it up, put the darkness to sleep again.” And then, once more, “I love you, Ryder.”
He stood and ran.
* * *
Echo followed Ryder, running as fast as she could. It didn’t take her long to realize where he was headed.
Perhaps he wasn’t beyond hope, after all.
By the time she reached the cottage, he was already inside. The front door stood open, so she walked in. Ran in. She wasn’t sure what she would find.
On the far end of the living area, Cassidy stood with her grandmother on one side and James McManus on the other. All three looked terrified.
Cassidy’s eyes jumped to Echo, and she said, in a child’s terrified voice, “That is not my da!”
“Of course I’m your da,” Ryder said without emotion.
Cassidy shook her head, and again she looked to Echo for help. “He’s still in there, but he’s weak. He’s fighting, fighting.” She took a deep breath. This little girl who could see so much, do so much...she was scared. “The curse is trying to take over, and if it does...”
“God help us all,” McManus said in a lowered voice.
Ryder lifted a hand and began to wave it in the older man’s direction, but when Cassidy threw herself in front of McManus, Ryder’s hand dropped. Slowly. Echo found hope in that instinctive decision. The man she loved would not hurt his daughter.
“There’s no curse,” he said, flexing the fingers of his right hand as if he wondered why he’d lowered it.
Cassidy argued, “There is a curse. Echo sees it, too. Don’t you? Please tell me you see it.”
Echo walked around Ryder, studying him, wondering what Cassidy saw in him that she had not. The abilities she’d tried so hard to bury drifted to the surface, and with some effort she suddenly saw—sensed, felt—what the child had seen right away.
The powers Ryder had been born with were there, but they were buried deep beneath unnatural abilities that had been poured into him a very long time ago. Poured by his mother, who Ryder had admitted gave him more magic than he’d been born with. She had not taught her young son, Echo realized, she’d changed him. The magic she’d worked hadn’t been good or healing. Instead, it was as if she had cursed him. She’d forced this darkness upon him. He hadn’t been made to carry that much power and so it had warped him. Perhaps she’d thought she was doing him a favor...
Some favor. She’d made her son a Jekyll and Hyde. Had his soul been in constant battle since then? Light against dark—innate abilities fighting against a powerful curse.
She had so often thought of her own abilities as a curse, but this...this was a true curse.
Echo placed a hand on Ryder’s arm hoping for more insight, but he quickly shook her off. He turned dark eyes to her, and she saw the battle. Another being, a dark one, had been created when his mother had cursed him. Had she realized what she was doing?
“Curses can be broken,” she whispered. Ryder wouldn’t need talismans to hold back the curse, not if it was removed entirely. That was the only good she saw in this, the only positive development. He had not been born with dark magic; it had been forced upon him.
“What if I don’t want this particular curse broken, Raintree?”
She placed her hand on his arm again, and this time she wouldn’t allow him to shake her off. “My name is Echo, and you love me.”
The smile he gave her was cruel. “No, I don’t.”
He said he didn’t love her, but after that initial attempt at distancing himself from her—which she’d handled easily—he didn’t move away or push her back. Something within him liked her touch. Still holding his arm, she closed her eyes and tried to concentrate, tried to identify more. When? How? What could she do to help? She gave it everything she had, but it was not enough.
Until Cassidy took her free hand and squeezed.
At the child’s touch, power rushed into Echo. It was the kind of power that could easily knock a woman off her feet, but Echo remained standing. She was strong; she was determined. Ryder’s arm was cold and hard beneath one palm; Cassidy’s warm, soft hand was in the other. Cassidy’s touch fed Echo. It empowered her.
Images filled Echo’s head, while a sharp pain filled her heart. She saw beyond the darkness and strength she’d found before in the man she loved. She saw a boy, the boy Ryder had once been. Hair too long, eyes too dark and filled with pain...she would have recognized him anywhere. Anytime.
He had not asked for this, had not sought it.
Yes, the curse could be broken, but only Ryder’s mother, the woman who had cast the dark spell, knew how. And she was long dead.
She didn’t have to tell Ryder what she saw. He slipped into her head the way he sometimes did, but more completely than before. It would be difficult to hide anything from him now. She was going to have to try...
“Even if I wanted to go back to the man I was, and I do not, it’s impossible.”
“Maybe not,” Echo said as she dropped her hand and stepped away from Ryder. Cassidy’s hand remained in hers. She gave the child’s small hand a little squeeze, an offer of comfort, of hope.
Ryder closed his eyes. She could see the struggle in him. “I can’t...”
“You can!” she insisted.
He opened his eyes and looked at her, and in a flash she saw a hint of the man she loved. For a split second she saw who he was, who he might one day be again. It was not too late.
“I can’t,” he said again, but then he added, “Not yet. Maisy wasn’t working alone. This isn’t over. I need every advantage I have...”
“This is not an advantage!” she argued.
He would not be swayed. “Look into the future, Raintree prophet,” he said in an unkind tone, and the man she’d glimpsed was once again gone. “I can’t save Cassidy if I’m weak.”
“You’re not weak,” she argued.
“Look, if you can. If you have honed your powers at all while you’ve been here, you’ll see and know, as I do, that without this curse the men who are coming to Cloughban will win.” This time he took her hand, and he squeezed tight. Too tight. She thought her bones might break if he continued to squeeze so hard.
She did see, and for a moment her heart stopped. They were gone. They were supposed to be gone! She knew who was coming for Cloughban, who was coming for the stones and the power, for the sanctuary. A name popped into her head as if it were a flashing neon sign, and in that instant she knew who was coming for Cassidy.
As Ryder released her hand, she stepped back and gasped, “Ansara.”
* * *
Rye walked slowly back toward town. Echo was in his wake, silent—for once—but refusing to give up. He’d told her to stay at the cottage with Cassidy and the others, but she’d refused. Refused to stay behind, refused to be protected. Why did he care if she was protected or not?
He’d placed a spell on the cottage and the people inside, hiding them from prying eyes, keeping them safe. He didn’t care about the others, but deep inside he did care about his daughter. Not because she was his daughter, his blood, his child, but because she was so incredibly powerful she might one day be of use to him.
Echo had thought the evil and power-hungry Ansara clan to be no more. Foolish. One had survived. Over the years that single surviving Ansara had brought strays into the fold. Strays like Maisy. They’d begun to build a new clan, one independent at a time. What sorts of promises had been made? Power, certainly.
Money. Revenge. Possessing Cloughban would be the final step. They’d have the stones, the magic, the people. And Cassidy. No matter what, they could not have Cassidy.
He could simply take his daughter and go. Screw the town and the people in it. The Ansara could have them.
But a part of him, the weak part he could not yet shake, still cared. With his old powers coming back and trying to take control, he felt like two very different people occupying the same body. He’d managed a balance before, but his dark side had been sleeping so long it was stronger than before. More determined to survive. To win.
That part of him was angry, and determined not to be denied again.
The back of the pub was in sight when Echo said, “Two days.”
“I’m aware,” he snapped.
“In two days the Ansara will march into Cloughban and if we don’t do something they’ll take it.”
“Go, then. Get into your rental car, drive to the airport and go home.”
“No,” she said softly.
“Why not? This is not your battle to fight!”
“It is my battle, dammit! Do you think I like it? Do you think I like admitting that this is home now? I don’t, but it is.” She didn’t sound happy about the fact. “All my life I’ve searched for home. Not Raintree home, not Gideon’s home, not a place to crash for a while. My home. And finally, I find it on the other side of the world. No Wi-Fi, no Walmart, no movie theater or bowling alley or...hell, anything!”
“Then go,” he said again. “Find another home, one with your bleedin’ Wi-Fi.”
She sighed. He did not turn to look at her.
“It doesn’t work that way, and you know it.” Her voice was slightly calmer than it had been. “Besides, faults aside, this is the most beautiful and peaceful place I’ve ever been.”
Rye snorted. “Peaceful?”
“Well, normally. Maybe not this week, but...all in all. The important thing is, I belong here. I feel like I’ve spent my entire life taking one small step after another for the specific purpose of finding Cloughban. And you,” she added in a more determined voice.
He needed to be just as determined as she was. Colder. Surer. “This is not your home, and what we have is nothing more than lust.”
“Bullshit!” she said as she ran forward to pull up alongside him. “Empath here, remember? A part of you does love me.”
She was silent for a few moments after that. Silent and thoughtful. Finally she said, “Two days is not enough time.”
“To get ready for the Ansara?”
She didn’t answer, not out loud, but he heard her thoughts more clearly than ever.
To make you love me. Jerk.
Chapter 20
Ryder didn’t invite her into the pub, but he didn’t push her away when she followed him inside, either. Empathic abilities were not required to see that he was a man at war with himself, that since removing the protective talismans he’d been light and evil wrapped in one package.
Her Ryder was a father, a lover, a leader and protector. He was what he had been born to be—a guardian. Guardian of the stones, of his child, of Cloughban...even of her.
He was also a killer. Ryder had killed years ago, and he’d killed again tonight. Did it matter that those lives he’d taken had been dark ones? She couldn’t—wouldn’t—say. She did understand that with his own darkness flowing free again he was power hungry and slightly sociopathic. Slightly? Who was she kidding...?
In spite of all that, there remained deep inside a part of him a man who was willing to do anything for those he loved. For her. For Cassidy. She looked at him with loving eyes and so easily saw the man he had been as well as the man he was now, at this moment. She saw the good and bad.
It sounded like a fairy tale, she realized that, but in her heart she was certain that love could save Ryder. No, not save. Guide. He was going to have to save himself. Love could push back the dark and feed the light. Her love. It wasn’t enough that she loved him, he had to love her back.
Then they could handle the Ansara, and after that, the cure. The removal of the curse.
Unfortunately, Ryder was right about one thing. He needed every power he possessed to win in a battle against the coming invasion. Dark and light. The Ansara had never been known for fighting fair. She wished she could see more of the future, that she could bring on one of the visions she’d been trying so hard to shake for good.
As they climbed the stairs to his living quarters—she right behind him, he not looking back—Ryder told her, in the crudest terms possible, what he would do to her if she was foolish enough to crawl into bed with him. Her quick response was a simple “Fine.” If she ran now, if she allowed him to scare her away, the man she loved would truly be lost.
And so would she. He needed her, but this was not a one-sided relationship. She needed him, too. All her life she’d been lost, in one way or another. She’d been dissatisfied with her lot in life, rootless, wandering. For as long as she could remember she’d been searching for a better place, a better life. Now she understood that her better life was here.
He didn’t bother to switch on the light, but it wasn’t necessary. Bright moonlight shone through the window. There were shadows here, but not complete darkness. She could see him; he could see her.
By the side of his bed, Echo calmly removed her clothes. All of them. Ryder, standing just a few feet away, watched closely. Eyes dark, hands clenched, he tensed. He remained at war with himself, a war that seemed to cause him physical pain as well as mental anguish. She supposed that would continue until one side or another won. Until he was her Ryder again, or...the other.
She wanted her Ryder back, no matter what the cost.
When she was naked she looked at him. And waited. Eyes never leaving her, he removed his own clothes methodically and tossed them aside. His body was fine, and even in the midst of crisis she could appreciate it. The length, the shape, the muscles, even the erection, which told her that no matter what he said he did want her. Physically, at least.
He took a few steps to join her, wrapped his strong arms around her and without warning threw her onto the bed. She bounced, and then surprised him with a laugh. There wasn’t much light in the room, but there was enough for her to see the shifting emotions on his face.
“Maybe I don’t want you anymore,” he said. “I’m sick and tired of you and your problems and your cloying, needy obsession.”
She ignored his words and pointed. “You don’t look like you’re tired of me.”
“Any woman would do,” he said as he crawled into the bed, spread her thighs and touched her.
“I don’t think so,” she whispered as he thrust into her.
His emotions battled even as he made love to her. She felt it all when he was inside her. Hot and cold, love and hate, power and loss. Most of all, she felt the pain this war within him brought to life. Not physical pain, but a pain of the soul. A pain of the heart. She soothed him with her body, with her hands in his hair, with the love he refused to acknowledge. Soon he slowed his movements, he relaxed. He flowed into and out of her in an almost dreamlike way that was more than she could bear. This was beauty amid darkness, pleasure amid pain. She didn’t want it to end.
As long as they were together, truly together, the darkness could not win. She wouldn’t allow it. Couldn’t. In this place, in this time, joined body and soul, there was no room for evil. It was pushed aside, shoved into a small dark corner where it was forced to cower, to wait. For a while, at least, for a few precious minutes, he was her Ryder. A man who loved his family, his people and her.
Stay with me forever.
I don’t know that I can...
As long as they could stay here, stay connected, remain one, he was safe. She was safe. But he began to move faster and so did she. Bodies ruled, not brains
and hearts.
It had to end, her body and his insisted.
Echo was in the stone circle; she was in his bed; she was nowhere and everywhere. He filled her, stroked her, brought her to a beautiful edge where she stayed as long as she could. As long as her body would allow. She crested, cried out, held on while the orgasm racked her body. Ryder was right behind her.
And at the moment it was Ryder. Her Ryder.
“I still love you,” she whispered.
“For God’s sake, stop it.”
“Stop loving you or just stop saying it?”
“Both.” He rolled away.
“No on both counts,” she said as she left the bed and headed for the bathroom. She cleaned herself with a warm washcloth, returned to the bed and crawled beneath the covers beside Ryder. When he turned away from her she curled up against his back searching for warmth and connection. Her fingers danced along his spine.
There would be no more snow, not on her account. It was time for her to be strong, to stick to her guns. She knew what she wanted, what she’d been searching for all her life, and she wasn’t about to walk away.
“Go home,” Ryder insisted in a low, gruff voice.
Echo answered honestly, and in a tone that left no room for argument.
“I am home.”
* * *
How could Echo sleep with him knowing who he was? She knew very well what he had been and what he could be again. She’d seen it, had peeked inside his dark past. She saw, felt, even experienced, things even he had forgotten, and yet she remained here. She trusted him enough to sleep.
When Echo relaxed completely into his spine and settled into easy, even breathing, Rye moved away from her. Carefully, so as not to wake her. He should leave the bed, leave her be, get away from her influence. Instead, he settled in and watched.
She was beautiful. More than beautiful, she was the embodiment of good, of everything he was not. Echo was beautiful inside and out, an angel to his devil. Light to the dark that was trying so hard to win.
Raintree: Oracle Page 17