If she failed—which she deemed impossible—she would have no one to blame but herself. And better that way than having to deal with incompetent morons, no matter how well motivated.
Rain suddenly poured from a leaden sky, drenching her in seconds. Irritated and now soaked, Kellyn waved her hand and created an opulent cave in the side of the mountain. God knew it wasn’t a five-star hotel, but she couldn’t afford to leave the proximity of Haven. Her scrying mirror told her Shea and Torin were on their way back. If she missed them . . .
She shook her head, provided clean, dry clothes for herself, then created a fire. Easing down onto a makeshift bed of silk pillows and warm blankets, she watched the flames, losing herself in the mystic call of fire and darkness.
Chapter 48
The fire cage Torin constructed to contain the Artifact was a huge drain on his energies.
Especially since he had not only to cage the black silver but also to flash himself and Shea back to Haven. Their return trip was taking much longer. Even his strengthened powers were no match for the black silver. The jumps were shorter and the breaks to rejuvenate themselves were longer.
He glanced at his witch, read the fatigue in her green eyes and knew that her powers as well were being drained. They were linked so closely now, it was their combined energies being used to safely transport the Artifact to Wales. And the journey was taking its toll on both of them.
He hated knowing what this was doing to her and hated more the fact that he could do nothing to change it. Without their working together, the Artifact would never get back to Haven. He turned his gaze on the damn thing, resting on a now blackened rock beneath one of a pair of yew trees. They no longer set it on the ground, not knowing if the magic spilled into the earth or just blackened the patch of grass it rested on. Instead, they set it on rocks or suspended it from tree limbs with rope they fashioned magically.
Anything to keep from actually touching it. The effect it had on them was too severe to risk exposure to it again. Even with their combined magics, they might not be strong enough to resist its lure.
“We’re nearly there,” Torin said quietly, his voice barely carrying over the hiss and spit of the campfire between them.
They hadn’t risked staying in a hotel or a B and B. Not only were they in constant danger of being pursued or attacked, but carrying the Artifact was an invitation to disaster. So instead they had camped alongside a river just inside the border of Wales. By morning they would be at Haven. Despite their flagging magical strength, Torin was tempted to continue on, get this business done. But he didn’t dare chance it.
If Shea needed him, he must have his full powers to draw on.
“I know,” she said, deliberately avoiding looking at the Artifact.
Torin understood. He too felt the pull of the dark reaching for him and she must feel it even more so. Shea was a direct descendant of its creators. A single link in a long chain. It reacted to her presence like a living thing and maybe, he thought, that was exactly what it was. Created from the breath and magic of the original coven, it was brought to life by the powers of the universe. Was it so hard to imagine that over time, it would grow stronger?
Become something else?
That thought was more disturbing than he liked.
Shea’s gaze moved over open fields and a lake where the reflection of the nearly full moon shone like a spotlight from the heavens. Then she lifted her eyes to the sky and the moon itself, high overhead. “It’s almost full now. Tomorrow, our month is gone.”
“And we’ve succeeded.”
“Have we?” She flicked an uneasy glance at the Artifact and worry glittered in her green eyes. Rubbing her hands up and down her arms as if to fight off a soul-deep chill, she reminded him, “That thing is still here. Its temptation is still buzzing around us. We haven’t gotten it to Haven yet. Anything could happen. For all we know, there’s another ambush aimed at us right this minute.”
“We’re safe here, Shea.”
She looked at him. “How do you know?”
He moved around the fire to sit beside her, then drew her onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her. Leaning back against the gnarled trunk of one of the centuriesold yew trees, he said, “We set up wards, remember? No one can see us. No one will find us. Between both of our magics, we’re safe.”
“But that thing,” she argued, refusing to look toward the Artifact again, “it doesn’t want to be locked up, Torin. I can feel it.”
“Whatever it is, it won’t beat us,” he said, tipping her chin up to look directly into her eyes. “Not if we stand together.”
“How can you even trust me?” she asked. “I touched it and changed.”
“As did I,” he reminded her.
“Yes, but you didn’t want the change. That’s the difference—I did,” she admitted. “At least, a part of me did. The same part that still wants to grab that thing and use it as it was meant to be used.”
He shook his head and slid one hand beneath the hem of her shirt. His fingers unerringly found the tattoo encircling her breast. She shivered as he stroked each individual flame and teased her nipple until she wanted to squirm in need.
“How can I not trust you?” he countered. “You felt the pull of it. Your body and heart changed beneath its magics and still you resisted. You turned your back on what it promised. You chose atonement. You chose to do the right thing and you always will.”
“I wish I were that sure,” she admitted.
“You should be,” he insisted. “You’re not the witch you were so long ago. You’ve grown through the centuries. Your soul has been tested time and again and always you have met the challenges you faced with your head high and your honor intact.”
She smiled and leaned her head on his shoulder while his fingers continued to caress her branding tattoo. “If I remember those past lives correctly, it was pretty close a time or two. I didn’t always want to do the right thing.”
“True,” he acknowledged. “But you did, whether you wanted to or not. I was there, remember. Even when we weren’t physically together, I was there, watching over you. And I saw your growth. I saw you fight to become the soul you are today. I have no doubts about your heart, Shea. How can I?”
She sighed softly and felt just a tiny bit of the weight on her shoulders slide free. “You make me feel as if it’s all going to work out. As if I really am who you believe me to be.”
“Trust me in this, Shea. You are a part of me.” He nudged her face up so that he could look into her eyes and she could read the truth of his words shining out at her. “You are the best part of me. We are one and nothing will ever divide us again.”
He bent his head to claim a kiss and Shea met his passion with a rising one of her own. It wasn’t just desire pushing her, though; it was a need for tenderness. For the feel of his love wrapping itself around her, blanketing her in the warmth of the strongest magic of all. She linked her arms around his neck and leaned into him, feeling the burn of the branding tattoo on her breast and along her spine.
She accepted his need and offered him hers.
Sighs and whispered promises filled the air. And when their bodies as well as their spirits joined beneath the soft, pearly light of the moon, it was as if the goddess herself blessed them.
Yet still the Artifact shone darkly, its menacing promise alive in the night.
It was time.
Kellyn set down the scrying mirror, uninterested in watching Shea couple with her Eternal. She had seen what she needed to see. The first shard of the Artifact was free of its prison and on its way to her.
The very weave of the universe trembled at the possibilities spreading out before her. Even from a long distance, Kellyn felt the lush, dark call of the black silver.
She smiled to herself, hugging the nearly erotic sensation of power to her as she would have a lover. The magical metal created by the coven and lusted after by demons would soon be hers—and her hands literally itched to hold it.
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Dousing the fire in her shelter, she leaned over and bathed herself in the coiling, shifting, thick black smoke, allowing it to seep into her pores. It filled her soul, not with the brightness of the light but with the absence of it. With the power of extinguishment. This was where the real power lay.
In the blackness.
In the shadows.
Night crept closer, now that the fire held nothing at bay, and Kellyn welcomed it.
The stain on her soul spread and she rejoiced in the inky crawl of it. She’d waited long enough. It was time to begin her own quest.
And the first order of business was to enlist Shea Jameson. She had no intention of turning the Awakened witch over to her partner or the Seekers or anyone else. She’d only used them to get what she wanted and what she wanted was Shea. And then the rest of the Awakened witches. To help her claim what the coven had given up so long ago.
To finish at long last what had begun centuries past.
To accept the dark, open the Hell gate and welcome a new lord and master.
Manorbier castle stood silent and empty in the hush of dawn. Over the sea, the sunrise spilled slowly across the sky in dazzling color that brightened with each passing moment.
Torin and Shea stood together in the inner ward, surrounded by the heavy stones of their joined past. The castle was testament not only to the passage of time, but to the enduring legacy of man. And here Shea and Torin would add their efforts to that legacy. They would, at last, set the past right and claim eternity.
Shea held the fire cage in an uneasy grip. She wouldn’t be able to relax until the black silver was inside Haven where it could do no more damage.
“We made it,” Torin told her, as if sensing her trepidation.
Another voice, unexpected, spoke up. “Took you long enough.”
Chapter 49
Shea whipped around at the sound of that impatient feminine voice. A woman stepped out from beneath the still-elegant curve of stone stairs sweeping up to the chapel. She was dressed in silk and denim and her short black hair was spiky, making her look almost elfin.
Until you looked into her eyes.
“It’s you,” Shea said, clutching the Artifact, still secure in the fire cage Torin had forged in Scotland. This was the woman she had seen studying them in a scrying glass. This was the woman who had done everything she could to trap them. To stop them. “You’ve been watching us all along.”
Beside her, Torin stiffened. “I should have left you in that prison.”
“Yes,” she said amiably, “you should.” Then she turned her gaze on Shea. “My name is Kellyn. But why not ask your Eternal who I am? He knows me.”
“Kellyn?” This was the witch who awakened when she wasn’t supposed to? Shea spared Torin a quick glance, somehow uncomfortable at taking her gaze away from the woman.
He stepped in front of Shea, moving to put himself between her and any possible danger. The dark-haired witch chuckled at the action.
“What are you doing here?” Torin demanded.
Shea sensed the tension in him. Every muscle in his body tightened, coiled, as if he were preparing to spring into attack. Shea stared at their adversary and had to admit she didn’t look dangerous. But there was an air of darkness surrounding her that sent warning bells ringing in Shea’s mind.
Torin kept his gaze fixed on the other woman. “What do you want here?”
Kellyn laughed dismissively and one eyebrow winged up.
Shea watched her. “Mairi told me that you weren’t supposed to have come into the Awakening yet.”
“Not everything moves to the schedule of the grand dear High Priestess,” Kellyn mused, her eyes sliding toward the stone staircase behind her that led to the chapel.
Shea followed the woman’s gaze, half expecting to see her aunt Mairi step through the open doorway. The last time Shea and Torin were here at the castle, they’d had to avoid the ambushers and race through the great hall to the back wall of the chapel to gain entrance. Had Kellyn arranged that trap? Probably. She had been working against them from the beginning, Shea realized.
“No men with guns today?” she asked.
“I don’t need guns.” Kellyn sneered and shook her head. “That ambush was not my doing.”
“And we’re to believe you?” Torin taunted.
Shea touched him briefly and felt his anger pumping through him. “What do you want, Kellyn? Why are you here? Now?”
“What do I want? Where should I begin?” She laughed, then changed the subject entirely. “How is Mairi?” she asked, her tone clearly indicating that she didn’t give a damn. “Still pontificating? Still warning all and sundry about the evils of too much power? Don’t suppose she bothers to recall that she too gave in?” Kellyn laughed again. “Remember, Shea? How she sent all of us out into the world, hiding shards of the Artifact?”
“Of course I—”
“But not her,” Kellyn mused, moving closer. “Not the great High Priestess. She didn’t have to go tromping off on an adventure. No, she just sat back and gave orders.” Her features tightened and her pale blue eyes flashed with temper. “Well, I don’t take orders anymore and neither should you.”
Shea’s mind tumbled with broken bits and pieces of the past. The days after that last battle with the demons had been filled with pain and torment and regrets. When together, they broke the Artifact, they had decided, all of them, to cast the spell of atonement and go out into the world, hiding the shards of black silver. Mairi hadn’t given any orders. Not that Shea remembered anyway.
“You’re not here to talk about the past, Kellyn,” Shea said. “So why not get down to what’s really brought you here?”
“You’ve no business here,” Torin thundered, gaze fixed on the woman. “Leave now and there’ll be no trouble.”
“I’m here to talk, Eternal,” she said smiling, lifting both hands as if in surrender.
Shea shouted a warning, convinced the dark-haired witch was going to use magic against them. “Torin!”
“Oh, relax!”
Torin didn’t move. He was a pillar of strength. Coiled power. “What are you doing, Kellyn? If you think to harm Shea, know that I will kill you, Awakening be damned.”
Shea’s heart swelled with pride in him. Strong, relentless, and more powerful than ever thanks to the mating, Torin would be a much more formidable opponent than Kellyn realized.
Shea rested one hand on his back, covering the branding tattoo so that he would feel the burn of her magic sliding into him.
“If I wanted her dead, Eternal,” Kellyn said with a shrug, “she’d be writhing on the ground at your feet.”
The easy, casual way she said it did more to convince Shea than any demonstration of power would have. There was something evil about this witch. Something deadly. Dangerous. Magic flared in her eyes and shimmered around her in a dark red haze as if it were all too much for her body to contain.
Torin speared the woman with a hard glare and spoke quietly. “Shea. Go to Haven. Take the Artifact to safety.”
“That would be a mistake,” Kellyn said.
“And why’s that?”
“I’m sorry.” Kellyn glared at Torin. “Did you assume I was talking to you?”
“Fine, then,” Shea said, stepping out from behind her lover before he had a chance to let his anger explode. “Talk to me.”
“Shea—”
“No, Torin. It’s fine,” she assured him, keeping her gaze fixed on Kellyn. “She won’t hurt me.”
“You know this how?” he demanded.
“Because she needs something from me,” Shea told him, tipping her head to one side to study the woman looking at her.
“Aren’t you the perceptive one?” Kellyn’s mouth curved as she folded her arms across her chest.
“Not really,” Shea said, keeping her grip tight on the Artifact within the fire cage, since she half expected the witch to make a grab for it. “You’re not exactly subtle, Kellyn. You’ve been scrying on
us for weeks. If you didn’t want something from me, you would have killed me already. Or at least you would have tried.”
“You know,” the other witch said, “I always liked you, Shea. Back in the day, we were friends.”
Somehow, Shea doubted that. This woman didn’t have friends. Only people she used.
“That was then, this is now. So what do you want?”
“To make you an offer.”
“Not interested.”
“Too scared to hear me out?” Kellyn laughed, delighted. “So, eight hundred years pass and you’re still the tentative one.”
“Nothing tentative about the word ‘no.’ You don’t know me,” Shea said, taking a step farther away from Torin. “Eight hundred years is a long time. I’m not that woman—that witch—anymore.”
She distanced herself physically from Torin so that she and the other witch were on more common ground. She didn’t know what else was coming, but she had the distinct impression that it would be decided between the two of them. No Eternal was going to be able to help her now.
This was magic to magic, witch to witch.
And Shea knew, with a sinking sensation that dropped into the pit of her stomach like a ball of ice, that her powers were no match for Kellyn’s. Even with the mating, she didn’t have the strength Kellyn did. And that thought worried her. If Kellyn wasn’t Awakened, how did she have so much magic churning inside her? Power rippled off the other witch in thick waves that were hard to miss. If Shea didn’t do something to alter the balance between them, Kellyn would win.
She glanced at Torin. Please. Just be still and let me deal with her.
No. She’s too dangerous.
This is for me to handle, Torin. Shea sent that last thought firmly, then shut her mind to him. She needed to focus on Kellyn. To prepare for whatever might come next.
“Talk him into butting out, did you?” Kellyn asked. “Good.”
Shea knew the risks in this. If Kellyn killed her with the mating incomplete . . . hadn’t Torin told her that their souls would die? Trepidation rose up inside her, but she pushed it down and steeled herself for what was about to happen. Too much was riding on her success to take any chances at failure. And there was only one sure way to give herself the edge she needed.
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