A Little Magic

by Nora Roberts

  He was breathless, fighting to clear his mind. Drawing her back, he framed her face in his hands. Solid, warm. His.

  "You're free." She pressed her hands against his. The tears that fell from her eyes shimmered into diamonds on the ground between them. "You're alive! You're here."

  "The Keepers said I have atoned. I was given love, and I put the one I loved before myself. Love." He pressed his lips to her brow. "They told me it is the simplest, and most potent of magic. I took a very long time to learn it."

  "So have I. We saved each other, didn't we?"

  "We loved each other. Manim astheee hu," he said again. "These are the words I give you." He opened his hand and held out the pearls. "Will you take them, and this gift, as a symbol of betrothal? Will you take them, and me?"

  "I will."

  He drew her to her feet. "Soon, then, for I've a great respect for time, and the wasting of it. Now, look what you've done." He trailed his fingers gently over the scratch on her cheek. "There's a mess you've made of yourself."

  "That's not very romantic."

  "I'll fill you with romance, but first I'll tend those hurts." He scooped her off her feet.

  "My mother's going to be crazy about you."

  "I'm counting on it." Because he wanted to savor, he walked for a bit. "Will I like Boston, do you think?"

  "Yes, I think you will." She twirled a lock of his hair around her fingers. "I could use someone who knows something about antiques in my family business."

  "Is that so? Ha. A job. Imagine that. I might consider that, if there was thought of opening a branch here in Ireland, where a certain wildly-in-love married couple could split their time, so to speak."

  "I wouldn't have it any other way."

  She laughed as he spun her around, pressed her lips to his, and held on tight as they leaped into space and flew toward home.

  And happily-ever-afters.

  -- SPELLBOUND --

  Prologue

  Love. My love. Let me into your dreams. Open your heart again and hear me.

  Calin, I need you so. Don't turn from me now, or all is lost. I am lost. Love.

  My love.

  Calin shifted restlessly in sleep, turned his face into the pillow. Felt her there, somehow. Skin, soft and dewy. Hands, gentle and soothing. Then drifted into dreams of cool and quiet mists, hills of deep, damp green that rolled to forever. And the witchy scent of woman.

  The castle rose atop a cliff, silver stone spearing into stormy skies, its base buried in filmy layers of fog that ran like a river. The sound of his mount's bridle jingled battle-bright on the air as he rode, leaving the green hills behind and climbing high on rock. Thunder sounded in the west, over the sea. And echoed in his warrior's heart.

  Had she waited for him?

  His eyes, gray as the stone of the castle, shifted, scanned, searching rock and mist for any hole where a foe could hide. Even as he urged his mount up the rugged path cleaved into the cliff he knew he carried the stench of war and death, that it had seeped into his pores just as the memories of it had seeped into his brain.

  Neither body nor mind would ever be fully clean of it.

  His sword hand lay light and ready on the hilt of his weapon. In such places a man did not lower his guard. Here magic stung the air and could embrace or threaten. Here faeries plotted or danced, and witches cast their spells for good or ill.

  Atop the lonely cliff, towering above the raging sea, the castle stood, holding its secrets. And no man rode this path without hearing the whispers of old ghosts and new spirits.

  Had she waited for him?

  The horse's hooves rang musically over the rock until at last they traveled to level ground. He dismounted at the foot of the keep just as lightning cracked the black sky with a blaze of blinding white light.

  And she was there, just there, conjured up out of storm-whipped air. Her hair was a firefall over a dove-gray cloak, alabaster skin with the faint bloom of rose, a generous mouth just curved in knowledge. And eyes as blue as a living star and just as filled with power.

  His heart leaped, and his blood churned with love, lust, longing.

  She came to him, wading through the knee-high mists, her beauty staggering. With his eyes on hers, he swung off his horse, eager for the woman who was witch, and lover.

  "Caelan of Farrell, 'tis far you've traveled in the dark of the night. What do you wish of me?"

  "Bryna the Wise." His hard, ridged lips bowed in a smile that answered hers. "I wish for everything."

  "Only everything?" Her laugh was low and intimate. "Well, that's enough, then. I waited for you."

  Then her arms were around him, her mouth lifting to his. He pulled her closer, desperate for the shape of her, wild to have whatever she would offer him, and more.

  "I waited for you," she repeated with a catch in her voice as she pressed her face to his shoulder. " 'Twas almost too long this time. His power grows while mine weakens. I can't fight him alone. Alasdair is too strong, his dark forces too greedy. Oh, love. My love, why did you shut me out of your mind, out of your heart?"

  He drew her away. The castle was gone—only ruins remained, empty, battle-scarred. They stood in the shadow of what had been, before a small house alive with flowers. The scent of them was everywhere, heady, intoxicating. The woman was still in his arms. And the storm waited to explode.

  "The time is short now," she told him. "You must come. Calin, you must come to me. Destiny can't be denied, a spell won't be broken. Without you with me, he'll win."

  He shook his head, started to speak, but she lifted a hand to his face. It passed through him as if he were a ghost. Or she was. "I have loved you throughout time." As she spoke, she moved back, the mists flowing around her legs. "I am bound to you, throughout time."

  Then lifting her arms, raising palms to the heavens, she closed her eyes. The wind roared in like a lion loosed from a cage, lifted her flaming hair, whipped the cloak around her.

  "I have little left," she called over the violence of the storm. "But I can still call up the wind. I can still call to your heart. Don't keep it from me,

  Calin. Come to me soon. Find me. Or I'm lost."

  Then she was gone. Vanished. The earth trembled beneath his feet, the sky howled. And all went silent and still.

  He awoke gasping for breath. And reaching out.

  Chapter 1

  "Calin Farrell, you need a vacation."

  Cal lifted a shoulder, sipped his coffee, and continued to brood while staring out the kitchen window. He wasn't sure why he'd come here to listen to his mother nag and worry about him, to hear his father whistle as he meticulously tied his fishing flies at the table. But he'd had a deep, driving urge to be in the home of his childhood, to grab an hour or two in the tidy house in Brooklyn

  Heights. To see his parents.

  "Maybe. I'm thinking about it."

  "Work too hard," his father said, eyeing his own work critically. "Could come to

  Montana for a couple of weeks with us. Best fly-fishing in the world. Bring your camera." John Farrell glanced up and smiled. "Call it a sabbatical."

  It was tempting. He'd never been the fishing enthusiast his father was, but

  Montana was beautiful. And big. Cal thought he could lose himself there. And shake off the restlessness. The dreams.

  "A couple of weeks in the clean air will do you good." Sylvia Farrell narrowed her eyes as she turned to her son. "You're looking pale and tired, Calin. You need to get out of that city for a while."

  Though she'd lived in Brooklyn all of her life, Sylvia still referred to

  Manhattan as "that city" with light disdain and annoyance.

  "I've been thinking about a trip."

  "Good." His mother scrubbed at her countertop. They were leaving the next morning, and Sylvia Farrell wouldn't leave a crumb or a mote of dust behind.

  "You've been working too hard, Calin. Not that we aren't proud of you. After your exhibit last month your father bragged so much that the
neighbors started to hide when they saw him coming."

  "Not every day a man gets to see his son's photographs in the museum. I liked the nudes especially," he added with a wink.

  "You old fool," Sylvia muttered, but her lips twitched. "Well, who'd have thought when we bought you that little camera for Christmas when you were eight that twenty-two years later you'd be rich and famous? But wealth and fame carry a price."

  She took her son's face in her hands and studied it with a mother's keen eye.

  His eyes were shadowed, she noted, his face too thin. She worried for the man she'd raised, and the boy he had been who had always seemed to have… something more than the ordinary.

  "You're paying it."

  "I'm fine." Reading the worry in her eyes, recognizing it, he smiled. "Just not sleeping very well."

  There had been other times, Sylvia remembered, that her son had grown pale and hollow-eyed from lack of sleep. She exchanged a quick glance with her husband over Cal's shoulder.

  "Have you, ah, seen the doctor?"

  "Mom, I'm fine." He knew his voice was too sharp, too defensive. Struggled to lighten it. "I'm perfectly fine."

  "Don't nag the boy, Syl." But John studied his son closely also, remembering, as his wife did, the young boy who had talked to shadows, had walked in his sleep, and had dreamed of witches and blood and battle.

  "I'm not nagging. I'm mothering." She made herself smile.

  "I don't want you to worry. I'm a little stressed-out, that's all." That was all, he thought, determined to make it so. He wasn't different, he wasn't odd.