by Nora Roberts
Her lightning crashed against Bran’s, and power screamed through the storm.
“Take the wheel,” Doyle ordered as Sawyer’s shot went wide when the boat tipped. He yanked Sasha and the stars into the wheelhouse. “Take us where we need to go. They need help.” He kissed Riley, hard and brief. “Don’t lose it,” he added, then fought his way back to stand with his friends.
“Heart to heart, light to light.” Sasha struggled not to fall as the vision flowed through her. “This moment in all the moments in all the worlds. Risk the storm, ride the storm, and open the curtain.”
“Doing my best here.” Teeth gritted, Riley wrenched the wheel, doing what she could to ride the mad curl of the next wave. And with her heart, and her faith, in her throat, set course for the waterspout.
Madness. Like an uncontrolled shift, a dive off a cliff. The whirling water caught them, spun them. She lost her grip on the wheel, nearly went flying before she managed to curl the fingers of one hand on the wheel again.
She glanced at Sasha, back braced, arms cradling stars like babies, and her face luminous with their light. “The guardians ride the storm, guided by the stars. The curtain opens, the storm dies. The sword strikes. And it is done.”
“Your mouth to all the gods’ ears,” Riley screamed. “Because I can’t hold it much longer.”
“Look, Daughter of Glass, and see.”
Dizzy, half sick, Riley squinted through the wall of water, the sheering wind.
It gleamed. Clear, shining, still in a beam of moonlight. The door to another world.
When the bow pitched up, she clung to the wheel, looked back.
Doyle stood in water nearly to his knees. Sawyer all but sat in it as he braced his feet against a bench and fired at the Cerberus.
“I can’t get a shot at her,” he shouted as Bran struck lightning against her shield and Annika attacked the beast.
“I can.” Doyle leaped onto the bench even as the sea rocked. He struck the Cerberus, all but cleaving the center head.
And his sword met Nerezza’s with a clang that shook the air.
Shook the worlds.
One of the heads snapped out toward him, and met Bran’s lightning. Doyle thought nothing of it, nothing of the mad sea, the gunfire, the slash of power.
His eyes, his thoughts, his all centered on Nerezza, and the need that had lived in him for centuries to end her.
He feinted, saw the triumph in her eyes as her blade slid past his guard, gashed his shoulder.
And on that triumph, he thrust his sword into her heart.
Those mad eyes wheeled with shock. Her shriek joined the third head’s howl as Sawyer’s next bullet hit home.
She fought to fly up, escape, but with the beast, she tumbled into the black, boiling sea, and was swallowed.
With her fall, the storm died. Stunned and breathless, Riley guided the boat through the door where the Island of Glass floated like a quiet dream.
Then she collapsed.
“Riley!”
At Sasha’s call, Doyle whirled, bloodied sword raised.
“No, no, it’s the moon. It’s changed. And so am I. Damn it, damn it.”
“I’ve got her. Somebody start bailing or we’ll sink before we make shore.” Doyle dropped down, helped Riley pull off the slicker, her sweater.
“I’ve got you.” He pressed his lips to her temple as she began to change. “I’ve got you, ma faol.”
She let it take her, let him lift her above the swamped deck. And when they glided to shore as if over a quiet lake, she let him carry her to the beach where she took her first steps on the island as a wolf.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
In all her life, Riley had never regretted her lycan blood. She’d never cursed the moon or resented the change. But finding herself standing on the Island of Glass, a place of mystery and magicks, of age beyond the knowing, and not being able to speak had her cursing the damn timing.
She smelled flowers and citrus, sea and sand, the cool green of grasses, smoke from torches flanking a path winding up a high hill where a castle stood, shining silver, beaming with light. Felt the warm, soft breeze—a balm over the chilly wet.
And the desperate need to run as the feral energy of the change churned inside her. She quivered with it even as Doyle crouched beside her, a hand light on her neck.
“Don’t run, not yet.”
Instinct, intellect crashed and clashed inside her, yet another battle. But his eyes, strong and green, held her still. Then she braced, muscles coiled, prepared to attack and defend and she scented something . . . other.
Beside her Doyle reached for his sword.
They flowed from dark to light, the moon goddesses of Sasha’s vision and art. Still gripping his sword, Doyle straightened. Bran laid a hand on his arm.
“Sheath your sword, mo chara. They’re of the light. Can’t you feel it?”
“Just how do you say hi to a god?” Sawyer wondered. “I mean one who’s not trying to kill you.”
Annika solved the puzzle by running forward, wet braid flying. “Hello! We’re so happy! You’re so beautiful. You look like my mother, and like Móraí. Like the pictures Sasha drew. We’re very wet, and, oh, I have some blood.” As if brushing lint from a lapel, Annika rubbed at the blood on her arm. “I’m sorry we’re so messy.”
“That’s one way,” Sawyer murmured.
Luna smiled. “You are very welcome here, Sons and Daughters of Glass.” And she laid a hand on Annika’s arm, healed the gash as she kissed her cheek.
“Oh, thank you. We brought the stars for you. Sasha has them. She has some blood, too. And Sawyer—he’s my mate. And Bran has blood and burns. The moon is full here, so Riley had to change very fast to her wolf. And this is Doyle. He stabbed Nerezza with his sword and she fell into the sea. Now the fighting is done, and we’re here. I have such happy.”
“You are joy,” Luna told her. “And you are loved,” she said to all.
“You are courage.” Arianrhod stepped forward. “And you are valued. We will talk,” she said to Riley, “but you must run. Be free.” Then she looked at Doyle. “On my honor, she will be safe, and she will come back to you.”
The wolf turned her head, looked at Doyle. Then bounded across the sand and into the dark.
“She will always find her way to you, and you to her.”
“You are strength and valor.” Celene stepped to Bran, kissed his cheek. “Power and light. You are respected, and have all our gratitude.”
“We are your children.”
“Blood of our blood, bone of our bone. Heart,” Celene added, laying a hand on Bran’s, “of our hearts. Daughter.” She turned to Sasha. “Will you give us the stars?”
“Yes.”
Each goddess held out a hand. As the glass around the stars shimmered away, each star floated to the hand that created it.
Pulsed, pulsed, stilled. Vanished.
“Are they back in the sky?” Annika looked up.
“Not yet,” Luna told her. “But safe.”
“Don’t mean to tell you your business,” Sawyer began, “but wasn’t the whole deal about putting them back up there?”
“We’re not done,” Sasha said. “It’s not finished.”
“I didn’t end her,” Doyle said as he studied Sasha’s face. “She’s still out there.”
“Your sword struck true.” With one hand on the hilt of her own, Arianrhod faced Doyle, warrior to warrior. “As you are true. But your steel was not the sword that brings her end. Until her end, the stars wait.”
“She cannot reach them now,” Luna assured them.
“But she can reach us, even here,” Sasha said as truth pumped through her. “Now the rage heals her wounds, and once healed, her madness will be complete. She will crave our deaths like wine.”
“But not tonight.” Celene raised her arms high. “See what I see, know what I know. This night is pure, and the Children of Glass are welcomed home.”
“To take another jo
urney.” Sasha’s eyes darkened as she saw, and she knew. “Beyond the circle of power where the Tree of All Life shelters the stone, and the stone shelters the sword. One hand to draw it, one to wield it, all to end what would swallow worlds.”
“But not tonight,” Celene said again. “Tonight you will have food and drink and rest. Come. We will tend to you.”
“She is safe.” Arianrhod laid a hand on Doyle’s arm when he hesitated. “And will be guided to you.”
As he glanced toward the hills, shadows under a star-dazed sky, he heard the wolf howl. The sound of joy and triumph echoed after him as he took the winding, torch-lit path with the others.
The palace, rising high into the night sky, was as Sasha had foreseen. Gardens of color and scent, musical fountains, rooms with a fairy-tale gleam that glowed with light and glinted with sparkle.
No one approached them as they followed three goddesses up a sweep of silver stairs strewn with flowers and white candles as tall as a man. Jeweled ropes dripped from the ceiling, raining light as they traveled along a wide corridor into a large chamber.
An elaborate sitting room, Doyle supposed, decked out with curved sofas and chairs in the same jewel colors as the ropes of light. Tables held food—platters of meats and fruit and bread, cheeses and olives and dates. Desserts all but bursting with cream. Wine and crystal goblets.
He thought of Riley’s fast. Her hard luck.
He didn’t question that his clothes, his hair and body, so thoroughly drenched by the storm and the sea, were now dry and comfortably warm.
They didn’t walk in a world of logic now.
A fire crackled invitingly, and though light seemed to emanate from the walls, candles flickered.
From somewhere, soft as a whisper, came harp song.
“You have questions. But the body, mind, and spirit must be fed.” Celene poured wine into goblets. “And rested. Your chambers are prepared for you, when you’re ready.”
“There is beer.” Arianrhod poured from an amber bottle, offered it to Doyle. “There will be food for her in the chamber you share when she wakes.”
“And if I go out to look for her?”
“You are free to go as you please, as she is. As all are. Might I see your sword? And you mine,” she added when his eyes narrowed. She drew hers, held it out to him. “I forged it when I was very young, tempered it with lightning and cooled it in the sea. I named it Ceartas.”
“Justice?”
She smiled. “I was very young.”
He accepted her sword, gave her his own.
“It has good balance and weight,” Arianrhod decided. “It still carries her blood.”
“Apparently not enough of it.”
“My sword, despite its name, was not meant to bear her blood. I envy you that. I would like to spar with you.”
Doyle arched an eyebrow. “Now?”
He saw a warrior’s gleam in her eye before she glanced back where the others filled plates, tended wounds. “My sisters would object, but perhaps tomorrow.”
“You’d have an advantage.”
She exchanged swords with him, sheathed her own. “Warrior to warrior, not god to immortal.”
“No. You look like my mother.”
That warrior gleam shifted to a compassion he hadn’t expected. “I hope a time comes when you find comfort there instead of grief. Eat, soldier, the food is good.”
Now she turned to Sawyer. “The demon, the human she turned, is dead.”
“Yeah.”
Doyle’s head whipped around as the others stopped to look at Sawyer. “Malmon’s finished?”
“We’ve been a little too busy for the recount.” Sawyer rubbed the back of his neck. “He went at Riley.”
“The marks on her throat,” Doyle added.
“She shot him, knifed him—body hits. I went for the head shot.” He gulped some wine, struggling a little. Malmon had been human once. “It took three. Magick number.”
“He is no more?” Annika asked softly.
“Melted into a pile of goo.” Sawyer sent Bran a wan smile. “You’re probably going to have to clean that up.”
“We are sworn not to do such evil.” Luna lowered her head, then lifted it. “But she has broken all oaths. And he became her evil. She turned him because she saw what he was. What was human, she destroyed. Not you, Sawyer King. You ended a demon.”
“To save a friend, a sister.” Now Arianrhod turned back to Doyle and from her pocket she took a key. “This will guide you to your bedchamber when you retire.”
“How will she find me?”
Surprise, and perhaps a little disappointment, moved over Arianrhod’s face. “You should trust, son of Cleary, Son of Glass. As long as your heart beats, she will find you.”
“Now you have food and drink and comfort,” Luna began, “we will give you privacy. If you have a need for anything, you have only to ask. Eat and rest well, and we will be with you on the morrow.”
“No harm will come tonight,” Celene vowed. “And nothing will disturb you. Be welcome here.”
When they were alone, Doyle picked up the beer, sampled it, decided he sure as hell couldn’t complain about that.
Sawyer lifted a hand. “Can I just say, holy shit? I’m not sure my brain’s caught up with the rest of me, but we’re sitting at our own personal banquet in a castle on the freaking Island of Glass. A castle, in case you didn’t notice, that’s made of glass.”
“Bollocks,” Doyle said.
“Back at you, dude. I had a good look, a good—if sneaky—feel. Plus I tapped on it. Glass. Magick glass, I bet, but wow. Plus, a god just poured me a drink.”
“They’re very nice. We made them happy, too.” Annika bit into a little cream cake. “I like this food.”
“She’s right about the food,” Sawyer told Doyle.
“Yeah, I could eat.” But he walked to the glass doors, opened them to look out on the hills.
“She’s fine. I can feel her.” Sasha leaned against Bran, sipped wine. “She’s more than fine. She’s thrilled. This is a world few have seen, much less explored, and there’s still an archaeologist inside the wolf.” Rising, Sasha filled a plate, walked over to Doyle. “Eat.”
“Eat, drink, and be merry?”
“Tomorrow’s coming either way.”
She went back to Bran.
He stroked her hair. “We found the stars, we found the island and returned them. And we should have known, I suppose, such things come in threes. So we’ve one more leg to go.”
“I must have missed the heart.” Disgusted, Doyle sat, brooded over the food.
“I don’t think so.” Now Bran brushed his lips at Sasha’s temple.
“It’s the sword,” she said. “Yours could hurt her, and enchanted, make her bleed, but can’t end her. We have to free the one that can, and will, from the stone.”
“Somebody’ll play King Arthur,” Sawyer supposed. “Hope it’s you, man, as you’re the best here with a sword.”
“We will have one more battle.”
“Don’t say one more,” Sawyer said to Annika. “It’s bad luck. Let’s just say, we’re taking a hike tomorrow.”
“I like to hike.”
“We’ll make our own fun.”
• • •
They talked late into the night, or what felt late, and still Riley didn’t come back. Doyle let the key guide him—it simply drew him along the corridor to a wide, arched door that opened when he stepped up to it.
He hoped to find her there, waiting for him. But there was no wolf curled by the fire or stretched out over the enormous bed.
Once again he went to the doors, flung them open to a balmy, almost tropical breeze perfumed with night-blooming jasmine and citrus. The room held a curved love seat in a nook, two wing chairs in front of the fire, a sturdy writing desk—she’d like that—under a window. And the massive bed with a soaring headboard carved with symbols. He recognized some—Irish, Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Mandarin.
&
nbsp; If his translation could be trusted, all symbolized peace.
He wouldn’t have minded some damn peace.
He took off his sword, leaned it on the side of a chair. Poured himself a couple fingers of what he discovered was whiskey in a slender bottle, and settled down by the fire to wait for her.
He should’ve been annoyed, and couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t—or not particularly. She’d have run off that energy by now, and should have come back. But she was still out there, sniffing around, he supposed—literally—exploring her brave new world.
So he sipped his whiskey, brooded into the fire, and with a soldier’s mind went over every step of the battle looking for mistakes.
He didn’t hear her so much as feel her, and turning his head saw her standing just inside the terrace doors, scanning the room with those amazing eyes.
“About bloody time.”
He rose, walked to the bed, tossed the bedding aside. He stripped to the skin, and rolled in. A moment later he felt her leap up, land beside him. Curl against him.
And finding his peace, he put an arm around her and slept.
• • •
The change came at dawn with the sun breaking the night with soft pinks, strong reds, rich golds. It moved through her, pain and beauty, helplessness and power. She shuddered with it, gave in, gave all as one became another.
And on a sigh opened her eyes to find Doyle’s on her.
“What?”
“Beautiful. You’re beautiful.”
Still half dazed, she blinked. “Huh?”
He rolled onto her, covered her, and his mouth was hot, indescribably tender on hers. Her system, her spirit, her body, barely through the glory of the change, trembled anew at the fresh assault on her senses.
She could barely breathe and his hands stroked over her skin, molded her breasts, skimmed down to her hips. His mouth followed.
She flew up, clung, clung, clung to that edge of impossible pleasure, then let it go to take the fall.
Helplessness and power, pain and beauty.
All she was responded, gave back. Here, too, was change, a merging of two into one. They rolled over the bed, grasping, finding, taking.
He could still smell the wild on her, all but feel it beat inside her. When her mouth met his again, strong and fierce, he surrendered to all she was.