Darkmoon (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 3)

by Christine Pope

  Mouth dry, I somehow managed to say, “Hi, Connor.”

  “Hi, Angela.” Calm, casual…just the way he’d been when I first woke up in his apartment. Back then, I hadn’t known quite what to make of such behavior.

  Now I knew it was his way of covering up what he was really feeling.

  “Thanks for coming.” Oh, Goddess, that sounded terrible. I might as well have been thanking him for showing up at a business meeting.

  The tiniest lift of his shoulders. “Since I hadn’t heard anything from you before this, I figured it must be important.”

  Hadn’t heard anything from you before this. Well, that was rich. Since he was the one who’d thrown me out, I sort of thought he should be the one making the conciliatory gestures. But this was going to be hard enough without me tossing accusations around. “I — I was trying to give you your space,” I replied.

  Another shrug. That green gaze seemed to slide past me, toward the water. “Thanks,” he said at last.

  I’d known this was going to be hard, but somehow I hadn’t thought it would be quite this hard. Even though I knew Connor had a tendency to clam up when he was upset or nervous, in that moment I felt as if I were talking to a brick wall. But now that I had him here, I knew I had to go through with this, even though I found myself wishing I’d never sent him the text to meet me.

  Just get it over with, I thought. Tell him. No matter how he reacts, it can’t be any worse than this.

  Lifting my chin, I looked up into his face, practically forcing him with my gaze to meet my eyes. At last he did, and without flinching. Good. That was better.

  “I asked you to meet me because, well” — I pulled in a breath, forced the words out — “I’m pregnant.”

  Immediately the cool mask was gone. I saw fear, true fear, flare in his eyes. “Oh, God,” he murmured. Then he shook his head. “You can’t keep it, Angela. It’ll kill you.”

  How he’d known what my decision had been, I couldn’t guess, except that he knew me. We were bonded, even if he’d tried to ignore that bond. Or maybe he thought that if I’d decided to quietly get rid of the baby, there would be no need to ever say anything to him.

  “That’s what everyone’s been telling me,” I replied, actually relieved to see the worry and dismay in his eyes. If he truly didn’t care about me anymore, would he be reacting this way? “But this child is ours, Connor. I want it to be born, no matter what happens.”

  He didn’t reply at first, only continued to stare down at me as if he’d never seen me before. Finally, “You’d really do that? Even knowing what’s going to happen?”

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” I told him. “Neither do you. Not for certain. But I’ll tell you what I told my clan elders — I will find some way to break this curse. I want to see this child grow up. And — ” For the first time I faltered, because my next words weren’t about our unborn baby, but about us, and that felt like much more dangerous ground. “ — And I really hope we can experience that together.”

  I’d been expecting a dismissal, or at most another one of those infuriating shrugs. What I hadn’t expected was for him to reach out and pull me against him, to feel his arms go around me in an embrace so fierce it almost suffocated me. Not that I minded, of course. What was a little missing breath when the man you thought you’d lost forever takes you in his arms like that?

  His lips brushed the top of my hair. “I want that, too,” he murmured. “I want that more than anything.”

  Even as my heart leapt at those words, I couldn’t help pulling away slightly so I could cast a quizzical glance up at him. “Not that I’m not totally thrilled to hear that, Connor, but if that’s the case, why the radio silence? I’ve spent the last few months thinking you never wanted to see me again.”

  He did look shamefaced at that remark. “I know, I know. It’s been killing me.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “I mean it, Angela.” A pause, and he added, “That is, I did feel that way for the first week. I was furious with you — and with myself — thinking there must have been another solution, some way to save Damon. And I was having to deal with that while finding myself suddenly primus of my clan, and settling Damon’s affairs, which weren’t trivial, either, and — well, I was in a bad place.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said softly. All that time I’d been agonizing over losing him, and I’d barely spared a thought for what he must be going through on his end. He’d never thought he would be primus, never thought he’d have to do anything except live quietly in his brother’s shadow. And while I certainly didn’t claim to know much about wills and trusts and all that, I could only imagine that managing the disposition of Damon’s estate probably hadn’t been terribly easy.

  A hint of surprise flitted over his features, and then he shook his head. “You don’t need to be. I mean, after my head cleared, I realized there really wasn’t anything else any of us could have done. In clearing out the house and getting it ready for sale — ”

  “You didn’t keep it?” I asked, surprised despite myself. For some reason I’d thought Connor would hold on to the house, if only for a while longer.

  “How could I? My brother died there. Jessica was murdered there. He left it to me, but I sure as hell didn’t want it. So I sold the whole place — furniture and everything — for a price that Lucas told me was criminally low. But I didn’t care.”

  I supposed I could see that. After all, I was used to talking to ghosts, and even I wouldn’t have felt all that comfortable living in a house where two people had died. After I nodded, Connor continued,

  “Anyway, when I was clearing out the house, I came across some of Damon’s papers, his writing. Most of it was theoretical stuff I couldn’t make much sense of, but it wasn’t until I read what he’d written that I understood how insanely obsessed he was with you, with using your powers to break the curse. I guess I’d realized it on some level, but seeing it written down really brought it home to me.” Connor reached out and took my hands in his, and I wanted to weep at feeling those familiar strong fingers wrap around mine, comforting, real. “He doomed himself, Angela — and he did so knowingly, and willingly. I still haven’t forgiven him for that.” Green eyes searched my face, urgent, pleading. “But I did forgive you. There really was nothing else you could have done.”

  Oh, how I’d longed to hear him say that! Even so, I asked, “Then why didn’t you call me? I’ve been dying a little every day I haven’t heard from you. All this time we could have been together — ”

  “I know,” he said, the guilt clear in his voice. “And I was going to, I swear it. But then Marie told me to wait.”

  “What?”

  “She did. I told her about ten days after I sent you back to Jerome that this was crazy, that I was going to call you and tell you I was an idiot, that I’d made a horrible mistake — and she said I needed to wait, that she’d seen you would contact me at a critical moment, and that it was very important I not say anything to you until then.”

  Marie. I’d never liked her, but in that moment I hated her, hated that she’d kept Connor and me apart for no apparent reason. “That’s just stupid,” I snapped. “What, did she say it was another of her goddamn visions or something?”

  “Well, yeah, more or less.”

  That did stop me. Despite my dislike for the woman, I couldn’t deny that her visions were true ones, her instincts stronger than those of anyone else I’d met. “What else did she say?”

  “That’s all.” He paused, then added, “Well, that I needed to wait, and then when we did reconcile, that we needed to speak to her immediately.”

  The last thing I wanted was to go talk to Marie. What I wanted was to drag Connor to the nearest hotel room for some make-up sex. But ignoring the seer when she obviously had something important to say was probably not that good an idea.

  “So, what, you want me to go with you to Flagstaff to meet with Marie right now?”

  A glint I knew all
too well entered his eyes. “Well, what I want is to head over there” — he jerked a thumb toward the Los Abrigados resort — “and see if they have any rooms available, and forget about anything else for a while. But since Marie was pretty adamant about seeing her, I think we probably should do as she asks.”

  I found myself smiling, despite everything, because of the way Connor’s thoughts had run almost exactly parallel to mine. “Rain check on that hotel room?”

  The grin he sent me in reply was positively ferocious. “Damn straight.”

  * * *

  I decided to follow him up to Flagstaff in my own vehicle, not because I thought I needed an escape plan, but because I didn’t feel comfortable leaving my brand-new Cherokee for an unknown amount of time in the Tlaquepaque shopping center parking lot. Connor’s eyes widened a bit when I went to the car and unlocked it.

  “That new?” he inquired.

  “Yeah,” I said casually. “What, did you think I was going to keep borrowing my aunt’s Jeep indefinitely?”

  “Guess not,” he replied, with another one of those grins. “I’ll call Marie from the road, and you can follow me over to her place.”

  That sounded workable; I’d walked to her house before but hadn’t driven there, and it was probably better to have Connor guide me in. And there was definitely more street parking at her place than at Connor’s.

  The last time I’d been in Flagstaff, spring hadn’t truly arrived, no matter what the calendar might have said. But today I could see only a few small patches of snow lingering on Mt. Humphreys’ north face, and while the wildflowers were sparse compared to what grew around Sedona and Jerome, the aspens and oaks and sycamores had leafed out, making the landscape a bit lusher than what I was accustomed to.

  Irises bloomed along the front walk of Marie’s house, not the usual purple-blue, but deep crimson and yellow and some that were almost black. I parked behind Connor’s FJ and got out, feeling the cool breeze catch at my hair. As usual, it was a good ten degrees cooler in Flag than it had been back in Sedona, but now the air just seemed refreshing rather than biting.

  “I take it you got a hold of her,” I said as I joined Connor where Marie’s walkway met the sidewalk.

  “Yeah. It was almost like she was waiting for my call.” He shrugged. “With anyone else I’d say it was a coincidence, but — ”

  “But in this case it probably wasn’t.”

  “Probably not.”

  I reflected then that the McAllisters’ current lack of a seer wasn’t necessarily all bad. Having someone around who knew what was going to happen before it actually did happen could be a bit disconcerting.

  Connor rang the doorbell, and, as before, Marie opened the door almost at once. Yes, he’d called her on the way up, but still….

  Too bad she wasn’t a poker player, because her usual impassive expression would have stood her in good stead on the pro circuit. As it was, I gave her a half-hearted smile as we entered the living room. The last time I had been here was when we were planning Damon’s death, and what a grim, cold meeting it had been. Today she had the windows cracked open, letting in a fresh-smelling breeze, and a slim vase of ruby-colored glass held a bouquet of irises from the garden. There was even a pitcher of water and three glasses sitting on the low coffee table in front of the couch.

  I shot a sideways glance at Connor, and he offered the smallest lift of his shoulders. Apparently he didn’t have any more idea than I did why Marie would provide us such hospitality this time when she certainly hadn’t ever before.

  “It’s good to see you, Angela,” she said, and I almost tripped over the rug as I made my way toward the couch.

  “Um…thank you,” I faltered. “It’s good to see you, too.”

  Marie’s gaze shifted to Connor, and he said, “So…things are better. A lot better. But Angela and I have some news we’d like to share.”

  His remark didn’t surprise me; we’d agreed that Marie needed to know about the baby. It seemed only fair, since my clan’s elders had been informed of my condition. The Wilcoxes didn’t have clan elders, not in the same way we McAllisters did, but Marie — and, to a lesser extent, Lucas — seemed to have something of the same capacity in their family.

  Then again, it was entirely possible that Marie already knew….

  “Connor and I are going to have a baby,” I said, even if making such a proclamation turned out to be unnecessary.

  Her expression didn’t change. “Ah. So it has come at last.”

  “What has come at last?”

  For the first time since I’d met her, Marie appeared almost nervous. She reached for the pitcher of water and poured some in each glass, then handed one to me. “The joining of the Wilcox and McAllister clans.”

  She made it sound as if it were something she’d been expecting for some time. “And so…that’s a good thing, right?” I ventured. “So Damon was right? This will break the curse?”

  Even as a look of relief began to spread across Connor’s face, she shook her head. “No. That is, the two lines being commingled in such a way is not enough to end the curse. But it is the reason you must make the attempt.”

  I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. “Making an attempt isn’t good enough. Damon tried — Jasper tried, too, from what I’ve heard. So how is this any different?”

  Marie picked up her own glass of water and took a sip, and after a brief hesitation, Connor did so as well. From the tight set of his shoulders, I gathered he’d drunk the water to keep himself from telling Marie she was being no help at all. Goddess knows I felt like saying more or less the same thing.

  “Because it will not be a primus seeking to break the curse, but a prima. The energy involved is completely different.”

  That made some sense, I supposed. Maybe. “So what do I have to do?”

  Her eyes shut. I noticed how long and thick and black her eyelashes were, just like Connor’s…and those of most of the Wiloxes I’d met. The blood ran strong and true in this family, no matter what it was mixed with, apparently. Then she opened her eyes and, rather than looking at me, seemed to stare through me, as if her gaze was intended to pierce something that no one but she could see.

  “It is not my place to tell you everything. You must make the journey yourself. But I can tell you that sometimes you must go back to the beginning to see your way through to the end.”

  Well, that was helpful. Any more vague, and she could have pulled that pronouncement out of a fortune cookie. “Um…do you want to give me any more details?”

  She blinked, and suddenly the faraway gaze was gone, replaced by a stern and not all that approving look. “As I said, you must make the journey for yourself. Just because I sensed this coming, and knew you would play a key role, does not mean I know everything. I’ve told you what you need to do.”

  No, you haven’t, I thought. So I have to make a journey. Never mind that I have no idea where.

  Connor spoke for the first time. “It might help to know a little more, Marie. Unless you want us to fail the same way Damon did.”

  Her mouth tightened. “It’s not that I want you to fail, Connor. It’s simply that there are some matters it’s not my place to speak of. This is Angela’s story — and yours as well, to a lesser extent. You are the primus of this clan, true, but we’ve already learned that the primus does not have the power to make a difference here.”

  Frowning, he glanced over at me. I didn’t really like the sound of that, and I guessed he didn’t, either. It could have been that I was misreading her statement, but it almost sounded as if she was saying Connor couldn’t possibly hope to prevail when his own brother, a much stronger warlock, hadn’t managed to do so. Thanks for the no-confidence vote, Marie.

  But since I’d already come to the realization that it was a prima’s turn to sort out this mess, I couldn’t be too angry with Marie for having her own doubts. It would have been nice if she could’ve given me a smidge more information, although I’d already figu
red out that wasn’t exactly her style. Maybe that was just standard seer practice; if you didn’t get too specific, later on you couldn’t be blamed for seeing things incorrectly if events didn’t turn out as expected.

  “Well, sounds like we need to get our thinking caps on,” I said in a too-bright tone that made Connor raise an eyebrow. “Thanks for the insight, Marie. We’ll let you know if we come up with something. Connor, let’s talk about all this over lunch. I’m starving…eating for two, you know.”

  And with that I got up from the couch, grasping the strap of my purse as I did so, and he rose a second or two later. Actually, I wasn’t all that hungry, but it seemed as good an excuse to get out of there as anything else I could think of.

  If Marie saw through my little subterfuge, she didn’t show any sign of it…not that I really expected her to. She stood up as well, saying, “I know you wanted more from me, but this is the best advice I can give. Don’t allow what you think you know to get in the way of what you need to know.”

  “Thanks, Marie,” Connor said, obviously realizing that I was about to utter a few pithy words about his cousin and her “advice.”

  I sent her a smile that probably wouldn’t have fooled anyone, let alone Marie Wilcox, and then Connor and I were headed out the front door and back to our cars.

  “Don’t say it,” he told me, just as I opened my mouth to speak. “I get it. I really get it. Let’s just go back to the apartment and regroup, okay?”

  “All right,” I said with some reluctance.

  “You take the spot behind the building. I’ll park my car on the street.”

  “Connor, you don’t have to do that — ”

  Rather than argue, he bent down and kissed me, smothering my protests. Not that I minded; the kiss ignited all the fire I had forcibly banked down the past few months, and right then I didn’t care who parked where as long as we were together at his apartment. Soon.