Books by Nora Roberts

by Roberts, Nora

  "It can be." And at that moment it seemed a world away. A thousand years away.

  "And your house?"

  "It's an apartment. It looks out over the park. I wanted a big space so I could have my studio right there. It's got good light."

  "You like to stand on the balcony," she began, then rolled her eyes when he shot her a quick look. "I've peeked now and then."

  ''Peeked." He caught her chin in his hand before she could turn away. "At what?

  Exactly?"

  "I wanted to see how you lived, how you worked."

  She eased away and walked along the rocks, where the water spewed up, showered like diamonds in the sunlight. Then she turned her head, tilting it in an eerily feline movement.

  "You've had a lot of women, Calin Farrell—coming and going at all hours in all manner of dress. And undress."

  He hunched his shoulders as if he had an itch he couldn't scratch. "You watched me with other women?"

  "I peeked," she corrected primly. "And never watched for long in any case. But it seemed to me that you often chose women who were lacking in the area of intelligence."

  He ran his tongue around his teeth. "Did it?"

  "Well…" A shrug, dismissing. "Well, so it seemed." Bending, she plucked a wildflower that had forced its way through a split in the rock. Twirled it gaily under her nose. "Is it worrying you that I know of them?"

  He hooked his thumbs in his pockets. "Not particularly."

  "That's fine, then. Now, if I were the vindictive sort, I might turn you into an ass. Just for a short time."

  "An ass?"

  "Just for a short time."

  "Can you do that sort of thing?" He realized when he asked it that he was ready to believe anything.

  She laughed, the sound carrying rich music over wind and sea. "If I were the vindictive sort." She walked to him, handed him the flower, then smiled when he tucked it into her hair. "But I think you'd look darling with long ears and a tail."

  "I'd just as soon keep my anatomy as it is. What else did you… peek at?"

  "Oh, this and that, here and there." She linked her fingers with his and walked again. "I watched you work in your darkroom—the little one in the house where you grew up. Your parents were so proud of you. Startled by your talent, but very proud. I saw your first exhibition, at that odd wee gallery where everyone wore black—like at a wake."

  "SoHo," he murmured. "Christ, that was nearly ten years ago."

  "You've done brilliant things since. I could look through your eyes when I looked at your pictures. And felt close to you."

  The thought came abruptly, stunning him. He turned her quickly to face him, stared hard into her eyes. "You didn't have anything to do with… you haven't made what I can do?"

  "Oh, Calin, no." She lifted her hands to cover the ones on her shoulders. "No, I promise you. It's yours. From you. You mustn't doubt it," she said, sensing that he did. "I can tell you nothing that isn't true. I'm bound by that. On my oath, everything you've accomplished is yours alone."

  "All right." He rubbed his hands up and down her arms absently. "You're shivering. Are you cold?"

  "I was for a moment." Bone-deep, harrowing. Alasdair. She cast it out, gripped his hand tightly and led him over the gentle slope of the hill. "Even as a child

  I would come here and stand and look out." Content again, she leaned her head against his shoulder, scanning hill and valley, the bright flash of river, the dark shadows cast by twisted trees. "To Ireland spread out before me, green and gold. A dreaming place."

  "Ireland, or this spot?"

  "Both. We're proud of our dreamers here. I would show you Ireland, Calin. The bank where the columbine grows, the pub where a story is always waiting to be told, the narrow lane flanked close with hedges that bloom with red fuchsia. The simple Ireland."

  Tossing her hair back, she turned to him. "And more. I would show you more. The circle of stones where power sleeps, the quiet hillock where the faeries dance of an evening, the high cliff where a wizard once ruled. I would give it to you, if you'd take it."

  "And what would you take in return, Bryna?"

  "That's for you to say." She felt the chill again. The warning. "Now I have something else to show you, Calin." She glanced uneasily over her shoulder, toward the ruins. Shivered. "He's close," she whispered. "And watching. Come into the house."

  He held her back. He was beginning to see that he had run from a good many things in his life. Too many things. "Isn't it better to face him now, be done with it?"

  "You can't choose the time. It's already set." She gripped his hand, pulled.

  "Please. Into the house."

  Reluctantly, Cal went with her. "Look, Bryna, it seems to me that a bully's a bully whatever else he might be. The longer you duck a bully, the worse he gets.

  Believe me, I've dealt with my share."

  "Oh, aye, and had a fine bloody nose, as I remember, from one. The two of you, pounding on each other on the street corner. Like hoodlums."

  "Hey, he started it. He tried to shake me down once too often, so I…" Cal trailed off, blew out a long breath. "Whoa. Too weird. I haven't thought about

  Henry Belinski in twenty years. Anyway, he may have bloodied my nose, but I broke his."

  "Oh, and you're proud of that, are you now? Breaking the nose of an eight-year-old boy."

  "I was eight too." He realized that she had maneuvered him neatly into the house, turned the subject, and gotten her own way. "Very clever, Bryna. I don't see that you need magic when you can twist a conversation around like that."

  "Just a small talent." She smiled and touched his cheek. "I was glad you broke his nose. I wanted to turn him into a toad—I had already started the charm when you dealt with it yourself."

  "A toad?" He couldn't help it, the grin just popped out. "Really?"

  "It would have been wrong. But I was only four, and such things are forgiven in the child." Then her smile faded, and her eyes went dark. "Alasdair is no child,

  Calin. He wants more than to wound your pride, skin your knees. Don't take him lightly."

  Then she stepped back, lifting both hands. I call the wind around my house to swirl. She twisted a wrist and brought the wind howling against the windows.

  Fists of fog against my windows curl. Deafen his ears and blind his eyes. Come aid me with this disguise. Help me guard what was trusted to me. As I will, so mote it be.

  He'd stepped back from her, gaping. Fog crawled over the windows, the wind howled like wolves. The woman before him glowed like a candle, shimmering with a power he couldn't understand. The fire she'd made out of air was nothing compared with this.

  "How much am I supposed to believe? Accept?"

  She lowered her hands slowly. "Only what you will. The choice will always be yours, Calin. Will you come with me and see what I would show you?"

  "Fine." He blew out a breath. "And after, if you don't mind, I'd like a glass of that Irish of yours. Straight up."

  She managed a small smile. "Then you'll have it. Come." As she started toward the stairs, she chose her words carefully. "We have little time. He'll work to break the spell. His pride will demand it, and my powers are more… limited than they were."

  "Why?"

  "It's part of it," was all she would say. "And so is what I have to show you. It isn't just me he wants, you see. He wants everything I have. And he wants the most precious treasure of the Castle of Secrets."

  She stopped in front of a door, thick with carving. There was no knob, no lock, just glossy wood and that ornate pattern on it that resembled ancient writing.

  "This room is barred to him by power greater than mine." She passed a hand over the wood, and slowly, soundlessly, the door crept open.

  "'Open locks,' " Cal murmured, " 'whoever knocks.'"

  "No, only I. And now you." She stepped inside, and after a brief hesitation, he crossed the threshold behind her.

  Instantly the room filled with the light of a hundred candles. Their flames
burned straight and true, illuminating a small, windowless chamber. The walls were wood, thickly carved like the door, the ceiling low, nearly brushing the top of his head.

  "A humble place for such a thing," Bryna murmured.

  He saw nothing but a simple wooden pedestal standing in a white circle in the center of the room. Atop the column was a globe, clear as glass.

  "A crystal ball?"

  Saying nothing, she crossed the room. "Come closer." She waited, kept her hands at her side until he'd walked up and put the globe between them.

  "Alasdair lusts for me, envies you, and covets this. For all his power, for all his trickery, he has never gained what he craves the most. This has been guarded by a member of my blood since before time. Believe me, Calin, wizards walked this land while men without vision still huddled in caves, fearing the night.

  And this ancient ball was conjured by one of my blood and passed down generation to generation. Bryna the Wise held this in her hands a thousand years past and through her power, and her love, concealed it from Alasdair at the last. And so it remained hidden. No one outside my blood has cast eyes on it since."

  Gently, she lifted the globe from its perch, raised it high above her head.

  Candlelight flickered over it, into it, seemed to trap itself inside until the ball burned bright. When she lowered it, it glowed still, colors dazzling, pulsing, beating.

  "Look, my love." Bryna opened her hand so that the globe rolled to her fingertips, clung there in defiance of gravity. "Look, and see."

  He couldn't stop his hands from reaching out, cupping it. Its surface was smooth, almost silky, and warmed in his hands like flesh. The pulse of it, the life of it, seemed to swim up his arms.

  Colors shifted. The bright clouds they formed parted, a magic sea. He saw dragons spewing fire and a silver sword cleaving through scales. A man bedding a woman in a flower-strewn meadow under a bright white sun. A farmer plowing a rocky field behind swaybacked horses. A babe suckling at his mother's breast.

  On and on it went, image after image in a blur of life. Dark oceans, wild stars, a quiet village as still as a photograph. An old woman's face, ravaged with tears. A small boy sleeping under the shade of a chestnut tree.

  And even when the images faded into color and light, the power sang. It flooded him, a river of wine. Cool and clean.

  It hummed still when the globe was clear again, tossing the flames of the candles into his eyes.

  "It's the world." Cal's voice was soft and thick. "Here in my hands."

  "The heart of it. The hope for it. Power gleams there. In your hands now."

  "Why?" He lifted his gaze to hers. "Why in my hands, Bryna?"

  "I am the guardian of this place. My heart is in there as well." She took a slow breath. "I am in your hands, Calin Farrell."

  "I can refuse?"

  "Aye. The choice is yours."

  "And if he—Alasdair—claims this?"

  She would stop him. It would cost her life, but she would stop him. "Power can be twisted, abused—but what is used will turn on the abuser, ten times ten."

  "And if he claims you?"

  "I will be bound to him, a thousand years of bondage. A spell that cannot be broken." But with death, she thought. Only with death. "He is wicked, but not without weaknesses." She laid her hand on the globe so that they held it together. "He will not have this, Calin. Nor will he bring harm to you. That is my oath."

  She stared hard into his eyes, murmuring. His vision blurred, his head spun. He lifted a hand as if to push back what he couldn't see. "No."

  "To protect." She laid a hand on his cheek as she cast the charm. "My love."

  He blinked, shook his head. For a moment his mind remained blank with some faint echo of words. "I'm sorry. What?"

  Her lips curved. He would remember nothing, she knew. It was all she could do for him. "I said we need to go." She placed the globe back on the pedestal.

  "We're not to speak of this outside this room." She walked toward the door, held out a hand. "Come. I'll pour you that whiskey."

  Chapter 7

  That night his dreams were restful, lovely. Bryna had seen to that.

  There was a man astride a gleaming black horse, riding hard over hills, splashing through a bright slash of river, his gray cape billowing in a brisk and icy wind.

  There was the witch who waited for him in a silver castle atop a spearing cliff where candles and torches burned gold.

  There was a globe of crystal, clear as water, where the world swam from decade to decade, century past century.

  There was love sweet as honey and need sharp as honed steel.

  And when he turned to her in the night, lost in dreams, she opened for him, took him in.

  Bryna didn't sleep, nor did she dream. She lay in the circle of his arms while the white moon rose and the shudders his hands had caused quieted.

  Who had loved her? she wondered. Cal, or Caelan? She turned her face into his shoulder, seeking comfort, a harbor from fear on this last night before she would face her fate.

  He would be safe, she thought, laying a hand over his heart. She had taken great pains, at great risk, to assure it. And her safety depended on the heart that beat quietly under her palm. If he did not choose to give it freely, to stand with her linked by love, she was lost.

  So it had been ordained in fire and in blood, on that terrible night a millennium before.

  For a thousand years we sleep, a hundred years times ten.

  But blood stays true and hearts are strong when we are born again. And in this place we meet, with love our lifted shield. In the shortest night the battle will rage and our destiny be revealed. My warrior's heart his gift to me, his sword bright as the moon. If he brings both here of his own free will, we will bring to Alasdair his doom. When the dawn breaks that longest day and his love has found a way, our lives will then be free of thee. As I will, so mote it be.

  The words of Bryna the Wise, lifted high the blazing castle walls, echoed in her head, beat in her heart. When the moon rose again, it would be settled.

  Bryna lay in the circle of Cal's arms, listened to the wind whisper, and slept not at all.

  When Cal woke, he was alone, and the sun was streaming. For a moment, he thought it had all been a dream. The woman—the witch—the ruined castle and tiny cottage.

  The globe that held the world. A hallucination brought on, he thought, by fatigue and stress and the breakdown he'd secretly worried about.

  But he recognized the room—the flowers still fresh in the vases, the scent of them, and Bryna, on the air. True, then. He pressed his fingers to his eyes to rub away sleep. All true, and all unbelievable. And all somehow wonderful.

  He got out of bed, walked into the charming little bathroom, stepped into the clawfoot tub, and twitched the circling curtain into place. He adjusted the shower for hot and let the steam rise.

  He hadn't showered with her yet, Cal thought, grinning as he turned his face into the spray. Hadn't soaped that long, lovely body of hers until it was slick and slippery, hadn't seen the water run through that glorious mane of flame-red hair. Had yet to ease inside her while the water ran hot and the steam rose in clouds.

  His grin winked off, replaced by a look of puzzlement. Had he turned to her in the night, in his dreams, seeking that tangle of tongues and limbs, that slow, satiny slide of bodies?

  Why couldn't he remember? Why couldn't he be sure?

  What did it matter? Annoyed with himself, he flicked off the water, snatched a towel from the heating rack. Whether it had been real or a dream, she was there for him as he'd wanted no one to be before.

  Was it you, or another, she moved under in the night?

  Cal's eyes went dark as the voice whispered slyly in his head. He toweled off roughly.

  She uses you. Uses you to gain her own ends. Spellbinds you until she has what she seeks.

  The room was suddenly airless, the steam thick and clogging his lungs. He reached blindly for the door, found only s
wirling air.

  She brought you here, drew you into her web. Other men have been trapped in it.

  She seeks to possess you, body and soul. Who will you be when she's done with you?

  Cal all but fell into the door, panicked for a shuddering instant when he thought it locked. But his slippery hands yanked it open and he stumbled into the cool, sun-washed air of the bedroom. Behind him the mists swirled dark, shimmered greedily, then vanished.

  What the hell? He found himself trembling all over, like a schoolboy rushing out of a haunted house. It had seemed as if there had been… something, something cold and slick and smelling of death crowded into that room with him, hiding in the mists.

  But when Cal turned and stepped back to the door, he saw only a charming room, a fogged mirror, and the thinning steam from his shower.

  Imagination working overtime, he thought, then let out half a laugh. Whose wouldn't, under the circumstances? But he shut the bathroom door firmly before he dressed and went down to find her.

  She was spinning wool. Humming along with the quiet, rhythmic clacking of spindle and wheel. Her hands were as graceful as a harpist's on strings and her wool was as white as innocence.

  Her dress was blue this morning, deep as her eyes. A thick silver chain carrying an ornately carved pendant hung between her breasts. Her hair was pinned up, leaving that porcelain face unframed.

  Cal's hands itched for his camera. And for her.

  She looked up, her hands never faltering, and smiled. "Well, did you decide to join the living, then?"

  "My body clock's still in the States. Is it late?"

  "Hmm, nearly half-ten. You'll be hungry, I'll wager. Come, have your coffee.

  I'll fix your breakfast."

  He caught her hand as she rose. "You don't have to cook for me."

  She laughed, kissed him lightly. "Oh, we'd have trouble soon enough if you thought I did. As it happens, it's my pleasure to cook for you this morning."

  His eyes gleamed as he nibbled on her knuckles. "A full Irish breakfast? The works."

  "If you like."

  "Now that you mention it…" His voice trailed off as he took a long, thorough study of her face. Her eyes were shadowed, her skin paler than it should have been. "You look tired. You didn't sleep well."