“It was,” she answered and though Shea couldn’t see her expression, she knew the woman was smiling. “But don’t worry. I don’t want you dead.”
“That fire was probably a mistake, then,” she said, sensing the banked power inside the woman.
“A miscalculation. The fools were supposed to take out your Eternal and bring you to me.”
“Why?”
“Because, Shea,” the woman sighed, “separate, we are each powerful but limited. Together, we would be unstoppable.”
“Who are you?”
“No more questions!” The woman waved one hand and Shea felt herself tumbling back the way she’d come, only to drop into her body, staring blindly up at the ceiling.
Breath heaving in and out of her lungs, Shea fought to steady herself. She’d heard the voice of her enemy. Felt the power surrounding her. And Shea knew the woman was far more powerful than she was.
She sat up slowly, her magic bubbling up inside her. Drawing down the moon had been dangerous, but worth it as well. She never could have attempted what she had just done without it. The renewal spell she’d worked had made her stronger. Just as mating with Torin was strengthening her powers. It eased her, knowing he was hers. Knowing that he would be beside her no matter what. Though she wasn’t looking forward to telling him about the woman she had just seen and spoken to.
After all, she’d seen for herself what she and her sisters had done centuries ago. The call of the power had been so seductive, they’d only wanted more. And they’d surrendered to something dark and evil. She couldn’t yet see it all. Couldn’t find the mental key to that lock, but she felt the danger in her bones. And that worried her.
If she’d been tempted to evil before . . . what would keep history from repeating itself?
Maybe it was because she was already charged magically. Maybe her defenses were down after her encounter with the woman in the shadows. But whatever the reason, one memory suddenly rose to the surface of her mind, sweeping Shea into a past that was still alive with power.
The cold, dark night was lit only by the occasional whips of lightning darting across the sky. Clouds covered the moon, but its brilliance still managed to stain the edges of its covering with silver ribbons. Wind howled and the nearby sea crashed against the rocks on the shoreline.
Torin grabbed her arm as she walked up the hillside, her steps sure, her features set in an expression of grim determination. She stopped and glared at his hand on her arm.
“Don’t do this,” he said, his voice deep, urgent. “Can you not feel the darkness hovering close? The air itself screams.”
“You worry too much,” she said, with a shake of her head as she slipped past him on the path. “My sisters and I know what we’re doing.”
“No, you don’t.” He flashed into flames and blocked her way. “Your thirst for power is making you all blind to what is really happening.”
“What do you know of power?” she demanded, gathering her cloak and pushing past him once more.
Overhead, clouds gathered and lightning crashed. The wind was cold and sharp and the sigh of the sea droned like the heartbeat of a restless god.
“As Eternals,” she reminded him haughtily, “it is your duty to stand beside us. To defend. Protect. Not to mewl about danger when you lose faith.”
His pale gray eyes flashed and swirled with explosions of magic as he reached out to take hold of her. He shook her hard, until the cowl of her cloak dropped away. The wind instantly lifted her long, dark red hair into a tangled halo around her head.
“My brothers and I stand as warriors. We are chosen to defend you all, even from your own arrogance.”
“Arrogance?” She echoed the word with a wild laugh. “Is it arrogance to know who and what you are? What you are capable of? No, Eternal. It’s you who are arrogant. To think you could stop us from what we know we must do.”
“I am not the mewling weakling you think me, cowering in the night,” he told her, face grim, eyes still swirling dangerously. “I am the warrior who has never failed to be beside you in times of danger. Yet I’ll not be silent when I see you walking blindly into disaster.”
The icy wind tossed her hair across her eyes and she paused to pluck it free. Staring up at the giant of a man who was both lover and guardian, she forced a smile and fought for patience.
“Torin, do you not understand how much more we will be when this is completed? We have left the cloister of Haven to draw the magics through the Artifact for the good of all of us. Can you not see the lure of the knowledge we will gain?”
“At what cost?” he countered. “Do you barter your soul?”
She frowned, out of patience, out of time. “If it comes to that, it is my soul to do with as I will. Come with me or don’t, Eternal. But do not think to stop me. I go to the stone dance to join my sisters.”
“Shea?” Torin’s hand on her shoulder drew her up out of the memory and she shivered as it faded.
“God, you tried to warn me, didn’t you?”
“What?”
She was shaking. Trembling from head to toe in the aftermath of that memory. She could still feel the bite of the wind, hear the ocean, see the banked fury in Torin’s eyes.
“Back then,” she said. “Back in the Dark Ages or whatever, you tried to warn me. You tried to stop me—us—from opening that damn door. I wouldn’t listen.”
Still naked and damp from the shower, he drew her to the edge of the bed, sat down, then pulled her after him. She went willingly, curling up on his lap, burrowing her head into the curve of his shoulder. “And not much has changed over the centuries,” he murmured.
She tipped her head back. “Do you really believe that?”
He met her gaze and gently smoothed her hair back from her face. “No. No, I do not. You’re still stubborn, but there is no great thirst in you, Shea. You’ve learned there are limits to everything. You still won’t listen to me, but . . .”
She slapped him. “I listen. When I want to.”
“Ah. Yes, a fine distinction.” He waved one hand and her clothing disappeared. Shea was grateful. She needed to feel the heat of his skin against hers. The solid strength of him.
“It’s all I can promise, Torin.” She looked up at him.
“As I suspected,” he murmured. Then his hand stilled on her back. “We have to leave again, Shea.”
“I know.” She chewed at her bottom lip.
“What?” He glowered at her until Shea opened her mind to him and he saw for himself what she had done while he was showering.
“Damn it, Shea! You allowed an enemy into your thoughts.”
“I was in hers as well,” she reminded him.
“And what did you discover?”
“Not much.”
“Was it the same woman you saw before? Who is she?”
“Yes—and I don’t know,” Shea admitted, scrubbing her hands up and down her arms. “All I know is she’s powerful and she wants me.”
“Well, she can’t have you.” He pulled her in close. “Leaving your body is a dangerous business, Shea. You shouldn’t try it without an anchor.”
Astral projection was a means of spiritual travel—to leave your own body behind and allow your mind, your very essence, to fly free. The only problem was, if you were cut off from your body, you might just end up stuck in the between world—not alive, not dead, just . . . not.
“Next time I’ll have you with me, okay?”
“Agreed. Now that you’ve unlocked your memories, do you know where we have to go next?”
She mentally grabbed hold of the memory that had plagued her only moments before. “I don’t know the exact spot yet, but I have sensed we have to go to England first.”
“I thought we would eventually end up there.”
She turned against him, pressing her breasts to his chest. “Of course you did. You remember where we were.”
“No,” he said softly, meeting her gaze. “None of the Eternals remembers th
at last night very well. I only know that the coven was based in Europe for a very long time.”
“I remembered something else,” she told him. “A name. Haven.” She studied his reaction. “You know that name. Do you know where it is?”
“No, not precisely.” He caressed her cheek. “The coven allowed no one into Haven. I know only that it was hidden from all but the coven. But after that?” He shrugged. “Back then, none of you risked sharing too much with us. None of you was willing to allow us too close for fear that you would lose some of the power you craved so desperately.”
She laughed a little and the sound was filled with misery. “God, how did you stand any of us? I only remember pieces, but you’ve got all of the memories, don’t you?” She looked up at him. “How do you see me now without seeing her?”
He cupped her face in his palms, his thumbs tracing over her cheekbones. His gaze locked with hers, he said simply, “I have always seen you, Shea. For who you are. Not for the hungers or needs that grip you as they do all of us. But the woman inside. The woman whose soul has finally found its way. Your time has finally come.”
Shea dropped her head to his chest and just leaned on him, feeling his strength. His permanence. This man had been with her through eternity. He’d watched over her even when she hadn’t deserved his protection. And he was still here, supporting her even though he had every reason to mistrust her.
Funny, she thought. Since the moment she’d met him outside the school—and didn’t that feel like a lifetime ago?—she’d wondered if he could be trusted. She’d held herself back, unsure of him or his loyalties.
Ironic to realize that through the centuries it had been she who was the one not to be trusted.
His big hand cupped the back of her head and held her close to him. “Trust yourself, Shea. Trust in the Awakening.”
She nodded. “I’ll figure it out, Torin. I’ll get us to Haven.”
“I know you will.”
Shea took a deep breath and let it slide from her lungs. “Can you flame us over there?”
He smiled. “No. It’s too far.”
“I suppose it’s not a good time to mention how much I hate flying then, huh?”
“We won’t be flying, either,” he told her, dipping his head for a quick, hard kiss. “With your magic Awakening, you could bring down the plane.”
“Oh, God.” Her mouth dropped open at the thought of crashing a jet with her powers. “Okay. No plane. Maybe not ever again.”
He smiled, running his hands up and down her back until he created a wonderful friction that took her mind off the trouble at hand. “When your magic is stable, flying will be safe enough. Safer even, as you will be able to ensure that the plane comes to no harm.”
“Uh-huh,” she whispered, only half listening now as his hands swept to the front of her and caressed her breasts, her tender nipples. She wasn’t interested in talking about planes anymore. Or witchcraft. All she wanted now was to make love to him once more before they left.
“So,” he was saying, “we will take a boat.”
“Okay . . .” She wriggled on his lap and felt his erection harden instantly. Then she smiled, bent her head to his chest and kissed the flaming tattoo that marked him as hers.
He hissed in a breath. “We will leave for New York immediately. The crossing will take several days.”
She ran her tongue across the tattoo. “Okay, then. We’d better go.”
“Not quite yet, I think,” he murmured and lifted her off his lap just high enough to give him the room he needed to enter her body. He looked into her eyes. “I want you, Shea. Now and always.”
At his words she slowly eased herself down onto his thick shaft. She took him in deeply and felt all the jagged pieces of herself slide into place. This was what she needed. This connection. This joining with Torin.
He moved within her, his gaze locked with hers and every stroke of his body made his eyes flare with more passion than she had ever known before. Her hands at his shoulders, she gave herself over to him and the real magic he created inside her.
Again and again, they moved together. She twisted her hips on him, sparking a delicious friction that sizzled along her nerve endings like live wires. Her heartbeat pounded, her blood pumped thick and hot in her veins. As she rode him, Torin dropped one hand to her center and used his thumb to caress her most sensitive spot.
More electricity arched between them. Brighter. Hotter. She let her head fall back and moved into him, over him. Shea felt his body tense and knew he was close to release. Just as she knew he would wait, contain his own passions until she had found hers. He would drag this moment on forever if it meant she had one more moment of pleasure. And knowing that, feeling that, she reached for the bliss and caught it.
Calling his name she shuddered in his grasp as her body erupted into a series of exquisite orgasms that left her quaking and limp. Only then did Torin claim what was his. Only then did he hold her body down on his and empty himself inside her, with a groan that was her name.
“Wow,” she whispered, resting her forehead on his shoulder. “That just gets better and better.”
He kissed the side of her neck. “And we will have eternity to improve on it even further.”
She stiffened in his arms. “Torin. Something’s wrong.”
He lifted her off his lap and sprang to his feet. “What is it?”
“Darkness,” she whispered. “It’s coming.”
Then the world exploded.
Chapter 38
The door crashed open.
Windows splintered in a shower of glass shards.
Shea screamed and tried to jump away from the glass, but her foot came down hard on a jagged fragment and the pain shot up her leg. Two big men grabbed her, each of them holding one of her arms, twisting them behind her back. Naked and terrified, shaken out of the cozy sexual haze she’d inhabited only a moment before, Shea looked to Torin as half a dozen strangers streamed into the room, shouting, waving clubs and guns.
Torin roared in fury and reached out for her, just as a middle-aged woman threw a knitted blanket at him. The soft folds draped over him and he sank to the floor under its weight.
“Torin!” Shea’s scream rattled through the room. She twisted and pulled against the men’s grips, but she couldn’t budge them. What the hell was going on? What was in that blanket that it could take Torin down like that? “Who are you people?” she shouted. “What do you want?”
“That’s enough of that, missy,” the older woman said, shaking her head. “Keep your voice down. No point in shouting—no one’s going to come to help a witch!”
Shea’s stomach sank. Oh, God. They were here for her. To take her who knew where. Maybe there were prison guards waiting in the parking lot. Maybe . . . no. She deliberately stopped her imagination from racing ahead of the situation. The woman had said no one was coming to help her. Which probably meant that no one was coming, period. These people, whoever they were, were most likely doing this on their own.
“Just look at you.” The older woman clucked her tongue in disgust. “Naked as a jaybird, and him no better!” She whirled around, faced a teenage girl and shouted, “Tessie Marie Grainger, you close your eyes this minute. I’m not going to have to explain to your mama that you saw a naked man while you were under my protection.”
The blond girl in question stared at Torin a moment longer, then reluctantly closed her eyes. But the smile on her face said the memory was a satisfying one.
Shea squirmed and futilely twisted, trying to get free of the two men holding her arms behind her back. But their grip on her was so tight, so strong, she couldn’t even snap her fingers to clothe herself. Instead, she was forced to stand naked in front of a room full of psychotic strangers. She felt their gazes on her like a caress from a dirty hand.
“Who are you?” she demanded, tossing her hair back and lifting her chin in helpless defiance.
“Watch your tone now, missy,” said the woman who wa
s clearly in charge as she reached down to toss the edge of her blanket across Torin’s lower body. “Honestly. You magical people, not a sense of propriety among you. Both of you naked and it not six o’clock in the evening. No doubt you were having sex and it’s barely dark out. Is it any wonder God-fearing Christians have to take matters into their own hands?”
Shea snorted at the woman’s sanctimonious tone. “Don’t make this about religion,” she said. “It’s not. This is just fear. You’re afraid, so you’re striking out.”
Martha humphed. “Looks to me as if you’re the one afraid here.”
Torin groaned and struggled to sit up. He failed and his gray eyes flashed a warning that told everyone in the room they had better hope he didn’t get free.
“Don’t you waste your time there, mister,” the woman told him. “I knitted that blanket myself. There’s threads of white gold mixed in with the yarn, so it’ll hold you.”
Well, that explained why the blanket was having such an effect on Torin. It also cut short any hope of him escaping that blanket and getting them out of this. Shea’s gaze swept the room, going from one face to the next. They all looked so . . . normal, she thought. Except for the fact that they were carrying clubs and guns and were holding her and Torin captive. Her gaze swung back to the older woman standing in front of her.
“You knitted a blanket with white gold threads?”
The woman turned to look at Shea, eyes wide. “Well, of course. How else could we control him while we take you? And let me tell you, missy, white gold thread yarn is pretty darned pricey.”
Shea almost laughed. Almost. She was being held prisoner again, but this time, it wasn’t prison guards. This time it looked like a local chapter of the PTA, for heaven’s sake. “What is it you want from us?”
“Well, first things first, I think,” the woman said. “My name’s Martha Chapman. I’m the president of the local Seeker society.”
Seekers. A hard ball of ice settled in Shea’s stomach. She knew that organization. She knew about the experiments. About the tortures. About the deaths of too many women—witch and human alike—to count. She looked at the faces surrounding her through new eyes now and she didn’t like what she was seeing. They didn’t look crazy.
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