Lifting her hips for his entrance, he pushed inside and Teresa held on to the headboard, bracing herself for each of his heavy strokes. She took him in and released him, feeding the need, feeding the fever clawing at her. Mystical energy pooled inside her, streamed from her body to his and as he reached beneath her to tweak and pull at her nipples, her body shattered.
She screamed his name, and shaking with the tremendous force of her release, she was barely aware of his own shout moments later as he emptied all that he was into her keeping.
Chapter 48
“I remembered,” she said, what felt like hours later.
Rune was dazzled by his witch, his body humming with completion and yet already hungering for more. Would he ever have enough of his mate? Would there ever be a time when he didn’t want her more than his next breath?
Shaking his head, he pulled out of his own thoughts and shifted on the pillow to look at her. “What?”
Teresa snaked one arm across his chest and he held her there, needing that connection. “I said I remembered. I did that moon spell and …” She blew out a breath. “It was like somebody opened a floodgate. Pictures, memories crashed into my mind and I couldn’t stand up to the onslaught. It was … terrifying.”
His hand tightened on her arm when she might have pulled away. This was what they had been waiting and hoping for. The return of her memories. Now she could tap the knowledge they would need to complete their journey of atonement.
The bed was rumpled beneath them. A light burned from the small bathroom and the draperies in the main room were closed, sealing them off from the world. They were alone with the past, and the future was no more than a hazy specter hanging just out of reach.
“Tell me,” he whispered, stroking his fingers along her arm in a comforting caress. “What did you remember?”
She shifted until she was lying on top of him, skin to skin, her eyes locked with his. “Everything,” she admitted. “I remembered every lifetime in bits and pieces that shattered around my mind like a puzzle that had been shaken and dropped.” She frowned, bit her bottom lip and said, “I saw me as Serena. And I saw you—how angry you were with her—me—and I didn’t blame you. My God, Rune, how did you stand me? Why did you love me? I was like the bitch queen of the universe.”
A reluctant smile curved his mouth as he listened to her berate herself for what couldn’t be changed. He lifted one hand and smoothed her hair back from her cheek. So soft. Her skin. Her hair. Everything about her was satin covering steel. She was stronger than she knew and he was all too aware that she was going to need all of that strength and more in the coming days.
“You weren’t as bad as all that,” he said quietly, though his memories were sharper than hers and clearer on the many times in their shared past when this witch had torn the unbeating heart from his chest.
She dropped her forehead to his chest and murmured, “Yes, I was. I lied to you. I turned on you when you needed me. Time and again, I let you—myself— down, and it worries me.”
“Why?” He tipped her chin up with his fingers, until she was looking into his eyes again. “Why does the past worry you so? It is merely a tool we will use to carve a future.”
“You say that, but you don’t really believe it.”
“Teresa—”
“No. It bothers me for the same reason that you don’t trust me,” she said, then spoke again quickly when he opened his mouth to argue. “I understand now why you don’t. Why you can’t. And damn it, Rune, even I don’t trust me now. What if I haven’t grown enough? What if in all those lifetimes, I still haven’t learned what I needed to? What if I fuck this up for both of us?”
“You will not,” he said, rolling with her until she was beneath him on the bed and he had braced himself over her. He caught her gaze with his and willed her to believe him. “This is our time. Together, we will do this. The past can’t touch us now.”
“It can influence us, though,” she argued, running her fingertips across the lightning bolts carving a jagged circle around his left nipple and winding their way beneath his arm. “You know that.”
“Yes. But its influence is only as strong as you allow it to be.” He cupped her face in his palm. “Do you want to succeed in this quest, Teresa? Do you want to put right what once went wrong?”
“Of course I do, but—”
“No.” He bent his head to her and kissed her hard and deep. When he broke away, he said, “If you want it badly enough, it will happen. The past changes nothing unless you allow it to.”
“What about your trust in me?” she whispered, with a sad shake of her head. “Our past keeps you from taking that one last step and you know it. So how can we even think to ignore what came before?”
“I … care for you,” he told her, though he knew it wasn’t what she longed to hear. But in spite of everything he had just said, he knew that his distrust still had a grip on him. That the past lived and breathed in the dark corners of his heart and mind. He couldn’t bring himself to take a leap of faith for her, but that was his lack, not hers. “I am your mate. I will be with you on every step of this journey. I will help you to solve the riddle and I will be with you when you return the black silver to Wales.”
“But …”
“Let it be enough, Teresa,” he said softly. “For both of us, here and now, let it be enough.”
Grief had etched itself into her eyes, but she nodded, accepting the limitations he felt within himself. Lowering his head, he took her branded nipple into his mouth and swirled his tongue across the sensitive tip. She held him there, her fingers spearing through his hair.
“You taste of moonlight,” he whispered against her skin. “Moonlight and magic.” Raising his gaze to hers, he saw the flare of desire spark again within her and answered it with a smile. “My witch. My mate. You are in my soul, Teresa.”
“As you are in mine,” she confessed on a sigh. “Rune, when you appeared in that tower of fire tonight, I’d never seen anything more magnificent in my life.”
“I felt your pain. Your fear,” he said and thumped one hand hard against his chest. “Here. Inside me, raw and bleeding. I knew you needed me and nothing could have kept me away.”
Her fingers moved over the mating brand on his chest again as if she could somehow soothe the ache that lingered there. “I should have waited for you, to do the moon spell. I know that. But once it started, Rune, I couldn’t stop it.”
Frowning slightly, he asked, “What do you mean?”
“The moon’s energies poured into me. Like a water faucet turned on full, it just kept coming. The mystical force of it was staggering and it was all over me. Inside, outside. I felt it sliding through my skin into the air and then wrapping itself around me again and seeping back in.” Her voice trembled and he cupped her branded breast with his palm to ground her. “I tapped into something that I wasn’t prepared for. I don’t know why it happened, what exactly I freed….”
“You freed yourself, Teresa,” he said, with a slow smile in the face of her confusion.
“What?”
“You said your memories returned. Can’t you recall the reason why the moon reacted so to your spell?”
Her features twisted as she tried to make sense of what was no doubt a spill of information flooding her mind. Eventually, she sighed and admitted, “No. No idea. I told you, the memories are there, but they’re all tangled up in knots and I’ll probably spend the next fifty years trying to work them free.”
“You were the moon’s priestess,” he said, his own memory nearly choking him now. “In the coven, on that last night so long ago, it was you who called down the moon. You who asked her blessing on the magic you all created. You who turned her gift into a weapon.”
“Oh, God …” She slipped out from under him, rolled off the bed and crossed the room in jerking, halting steps. At the window, she peeled back the edge of the dark red drapes and stared out at the night. Beyond the lamplit emptiness of the parking lot, there was the jungle,
with the moonlight glimmering softly over the darkness.
He came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her trembling body and said, “Tonight, you welcomed the moon back into your life, into your spirit. You reclaimed what you had once lost and its power staggered you.
“As it was meant to be.” He kissed her forehead, then reached down, grabbed her behind and lifted her, setting her legs at his waist. She hooked her feet at the small of his back and as their gazes met, he said, “The moon has forgiven you, Teresa. It blessed you tonight with the energies it has been holding on to for centuries, in wait for you. Now it’s time to forgive yourself. And to remember.”
She nodded solemnly and he could see in her eyes that acceptance was growing within her. His witch amazed him anew. Her power was strengthening, as were her confidence and inner control. Her heart was full and ripe and he felt her determination to finally succeed at what they needed to accomplish.
She had withstood tonight what might have broken other women and still held her head high and faced her past with the same resolve that she claimed her future.
Leaning in, Teresa kissed him. Softly. Sweetly. In a benediction of sorts that tugged at Rune’s heart and made his soul ache to forever be a part of hers. This one woman had somehow taken his battered, unforgiving nature and turned him into a beast who lived only to protect her.
“You’re right,” she said, then smiled briefly. “I may not say that often, so you should enjoy it while you can.”
“Noted,” he answered wryly, tightening his grip on her behind, kneading her flesh until she sighed with pleasure. That one soft sound jerked his cock to life and in an instant his body was ready for hers again.
“In the rush of visions and images I saw tonight,” she was saying, “one stood out. My grandmother. I saw her. She was alone and she was holding something out to me. A twist of metal.”
“The Artifact?” Rune asked, suddenly still.
“I think so,” Teresa said, frowning as she tried to recapture the image in her mind. “It looked Celtic. And it was black and shiny, like a thousand suns were trapped inside it.” She shook her head. “My abuela knows something, Rune. Tonight, I’ll search the Sanctuary library for Serena’s spell book. But tomorrow we should go to Chiapas.”
“Tomorrow,” he said solemnly. Then slowly, he moved his hands on her behind, stroking her center, running his fingertips across the hot, liquid core of her until she groaned and twisted in his arms.
Touching her wasn’t enough for him, though. He wanted to be inside her again, feel her heat lock around his body and hold him deeply within. He wanted that mating connection to burn more fire into his skin and to sear his soul with the same magic.
He walked her to the nearest wall, and slammed her back against it; then, keeping his gaze locked with hers, he pushed his shaft high into her welcoming sheath. She cried out his name as he took her, and Rune knew what the real magic was.
Chapter 49
She lit two of the candles she had left and hoped it would be enough. Dimensional magic wasn’t something she was going to take lightly, but it was imperative that she get hold of Serena’s spell book.
From the wash of memories still knotted together in her mind, Teresa had learned that most witches kept shadow books—magical journals where they recorded their spells and other important information. Whatever she had once known as Serena would be in that spell book. She had to find it.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
She glanced over at her lover, sitting not a foot away from her. He looked worried—and who could blame him. He remembered more clearly than she did the last time she and her sister witches had played with dimensional portals.
“Ready or not, I have to do it,” she said as a flicker of apprehension slithered through her.
She wasn’t even sure how to do the spell, but she sat cross-legged on the floor, lit her candles and tried to focus on the book she wanted. Serena’s spells.
She spoke, creating the words to a spell that seemed to echo in the small motel room.
Open dimensions let me see,
A peek back through eternity.
Serena lived and died as me
Find my book in the library.
She felt a rush of comfort and slowly opened her eyes. The air in front of her solidified, bending and twisting as if creating something from nothing. She watched as a shining ball of energy formed and floated three feet off the floor. Her breath came fast and hard in excitement. Despite her crappy rhyming skills, it looked as though she’d done it.
“You opened the portal,” Rune whispered.
A swell of pride filled Teresa as she stared into the wobbling sphere before her. It shone with the light of a million suns, yet somehow it didn’t hurt her eyes to look at it. The dimensional orb pulsed with power and shimmered with the magic that formed it.
She shot Rune a quick smile and then turned her gaze back on the doorway to the Sanctuary library.
“Now all I have to do is find the book.” Steadying herself, she reached out, unsure what to expect. When her fingertips brushed the surface of the sphere, a buzz of energy skittered through her system. It was a little like a static charge, she thought with a grin, and pushed her hand beyond the edge and into the heart of the orb.
She sighed at the contact and closed her eyes as she focused completely on the book she searched for. There were thousands, maybe millions of books in the library. She knew that because within the sphere each volume flew past her fingers, allowing her to skim across them, divining their contents. Finally, though, she felt a jolt of awareness when her fingers came into contact with the particular book she sought.
She stopped the slide with a thought, curled her fingers around the book and slowly brought it forth from the dimensional portal.
The moment she had completed the task, the sphere blinked out of existence and the only light left in the room was that of the two candles she had lit before beginning her spell.
“Is that it?”
Teresa held the hand-tooled leather journal in both hands, her fingertips stroking the soft, faded material. She took in the carved sun and moon, the interlinking ribbons of power that streamed back and forth between the two. She felt the sense of ownership zinging in her bloodstream. As if her heart recognized the antique book even if her eyes didn’t.
“Yes,” she whispered. “This was Serena’s.”
She untied the rawhide strings that held the journal closed, flipped the book open, and her breath caught in her lungs. The slanted handwriting. The Old English spelling. Even the sight of the faded ink itself. All rose up inside her in a wave of memory so thick, so rich, that her eyes filled with tears that blurred her vision and rained down her cheeks. The woman she had once been called out to her from the heavy vellum pages. Treachery and betrayal flooded her soul along with a nearly tangible sense of hopelessness and regret.
While her heart bled quietly for the doomed woman who had once held this book precious, Teresa could only hope that the answers she needed so desperately would be found in its pages.
Chapter 50
“What’s wrong?” Rune glanced at her from the corner of his eye.
“Nothing,” Teresa said, waving one hand in dismissal of what she was feeling. “It’s just … weird, to be riding in a car with you.”
He smiled briefly, never taking his gaze off the winding stretch of road spilling out ahead of them. The tires hummed on the cracked asphalt and the wind from their passing was a constant whine. “No choice really. You have to read the book and you can’t do that while we’re flashing in and out, traveling by fire.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said, keeping her head down, her gaze fixed on the ink-filled pages in front of her. “It’s just weird. So normal, I guess. Even Chico’s freaked out.”
He scowled as the bird hopped back and forth between Rune’s and Teresa’s seats. The irritating whistle continuously poured from the creature’s throat and Rune gritted his teeth in
response. The bird had somehow managed to find them at the motel the night before and Rune’s suspicions burned. What the hell kind of bird was it, anyway?
“Well,” Teresa added, “normal except for you buying a brand-new car with a suitcase full of cash.”
Rune didn’t even comment on that. For him, as for every other Eternal, money was no problem. Getting hold of the money hadn’t been an issue, either, since Eternals had access to incredible stores of assets through any number of banks. Buying a car from a dealer outside the city had been the only logical choice. Paying cash meant he had avoided certain paperwork and he preferred to leave no paper trail to mark their passing. It hadn’t been difficult to get the owner of the dealership to forgo a few legalities in exchange for hard currency.
“Have you found anything yet?”
“I’m not sure,” she muttered in disgust. “It’s so hard to read her-my-our writing.” Shaking her head, she flicked him a quick look. “Just the spelling is enough to give you a headache and she-I wrote so damn small….”
“Paper was expensive back in the day,” Rune mused. “No one wasted space.”
“Great. Just great. So all I have to do is thumb through about a million spells and some petty gossip about Serena’s neighbors. No problem.” She turned another page gently, as the paper was old and brittle. “This could take forever.”
“No, it won’t,” he said. “You’ll find what we need, Teresa.”
“You sound confident.”
“I am,” he said, giving her another quick look.
The road ahead was empty. They drove along a twolane highway stretching out to the horizon like a dusty gray ribbon tossed down and forgotten. The sky was heavy with clouds, but patches of blue dotted the expanse. The Chiapas landscape spread out on either side of them—lush meadows and green valleys soothed the eye, and in the distance, mountains high enough to be snowcapped jutted skyward.
“Hey,” she said a few minutes later, “I think I might have found something.” A smile colored her words, and when he looked at her, she was grinning at him. “You were right. I did find it. At least, I’m pretty sure I did. It says …”
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