by Nora Roberts
“That isn’t for you to say,” Cian pointed out.
“I am saying it. She’s exhausted, and she’s in pain. And that’s enough.”
“I said I’m fine, and can speak for myself. Which, though he enjoys being a bastard, is what your brother pointed out. I don’t need or want you to speak for me.”
“Then you’ll have to grow accustomed to it, because so I will when you need it.”
“I know what I need and when I need it.”
“Maybe the two of you will just talk the enemy to death,” Cian said dryly.
Out of patience, Glenna thrust at Cian with her sword. “Come on. Come on then, you and me. You won’t hold back.”
“No.” He tapped his blade to hers. “I won’t.”
“I said enough.” Hoyt slashed his sword between them, and his fury sent a ripple of fire down the steel.
“Which one of us would you like to take on?” Now Cian’s tone was like silk. And his eyes darkened with a dangerous pleasure when Hoyt pivoted toward him.
“Should be interesting,” Larkin said, but his cousin stepped in.
“Wait,” she said. “Just wait. We’re upset, all of us. Tired out, and overheated like horses at too long a gallop on top of it. It serves no purpose to hurt each other. If we won’t rest, then at least, let’s have the doors open. Have some air.”
“You want the doors open?” Everything about him suddenly genial, Cian cocked his head. “A bit of air’s what you’re wanting? Sure we’ll have ourselves some fresh air.”
He strode to the terrace doors, threw them open. Then in a move fast as a fingersnap, reached out into the dark. “Come in, won’t you?” he said and yanked a pair of vampires through the doorway.
“Plenty to eat here.” He wandered to the table as both of them leaped up, drew swords. With the tip of his own he speared an apple from the bowl. Then leaned back against the wall, plucking it off to have a bite.
“Let’s see what you can do with them,” he suggested. “It’s two against one, after all. You may just have a shot at surviving.”
Hoyt pivoted, instinctively putting Glenna behind him. Larkin was already moving in, flashing his sword. His opponent blocked the slash easily, punched out with its free hand and sent Larkin flying halfway across the room.
It turned, rushed Moira. The first strike hit her sword, and the force knocked her down, sent her skidding over the floor. She groped desperately for her stake as it flew—seemed to fly—through the air toward her.
Glenna buried her terror, dug out her fury. She shot her power out—the first learned, the last lost—and brought the fire. The vampire burst into flames midair.
“Nicely done, Red,” Cian commented, and watched his brother battle for his life.
“Help him. Help me.”
“Why don’t you?”
“They’re too close to risk the fire.”
“Try this.” He tossed her a stake, took another bite of apple.
She didn’t think, couldn’t think, as she ran forward. As she plunged the stake into the back of the vampire who’d beaten Hoyt to his knees.
And missed the heart.
It howled, but there seemed to be more pleasure than pain in it. It turned, lifted its sword high. Both Moira and Larkin charged, but Glenna saw her death. They were too far away, and she had nothing left.
Then Hoyt sliced his sword through its neck. Blood splattered her face before there was dust.
“Fairly pitiful, but effective enough all in all.” Cian wiped his hands. “Now pair off. Playtime’s over.”
“You knew they were out there.” Moira’s hand, still holding the stake, trembled. “You knew.”
“Well, of course, I knew they were out there. If you’d use your brains, or at least some of your senses, you’d have known it as well.”
“You’d have let them kill us.”
“More to the point, you nearly let them kill you. You.” He gestured at Moira. “Stood there, letting the fear soak you, scent you. You.” And now Larkin. “You charged in without using your head, and nearly lost it for the trouble. As for you,” he said to Hoyt. “Protecting the womenfolk may be chivalrous, but you’ll both die—with your honor intact, of course. While Red, at least, used her head initially—and the power your bloody gods gave her—she then fell apart, and stood meekly waiting to be dead.”
He stepped forward. “So, we’ll work on your weaknesses. Which are legion.”
“I’ve had enough.” Glenna’s voice was hardly more than a whisper. “Enough of blood and death, enough for one night. Enough.” She dropped the stake and walked out.
“Leave her be.” Cian waved a hand when Hoyt turned to follow. “For Christ’s sake, an ounce of brain would tell you she wants only her own company—and a strong, dramatic exit like that deserves to stand. Let her have it.”
“He’s right.” Moira spoke quickly. “As much as it pains me to say it. She needs the quiet.” She walked over to pick up the sword that had been knocked out of her hand. “Weaknesses.” She nodded her head, faced Cian. “Very well then. Show me.”
Chapter 18
Hoyt expected to find her in bed when he came in. He’d hoped she’d be sleeping, so that he could put her under more deeply and work on her injuries.
But she was standing by the window in the dark.
“Don’t turn on the light,” she said with her back to him. “Cian was right, there are more outside still. If you pay attention, you can sense them. They move like shadows, but there’s movement—more a sense of movement. They’ll go soon, I think. To whatever hole they burrow in during the day.”
“You should rest.”
“I know you say that because you’re concerned, and I’m calm enough now not to take your head off for it. I know I behaved poorly upstairs. I don’t really care.”
“You’re tired, as I am. I want to wash, and I want to sleep.”
“You have your own room. And that was uncalled for,” she continued before he could speak. Now she turned. Her face seemed very pale in the dark, pale against the dark robe she wore. “I’m not as calm as I thought. You had no right, no right, to stand in front of me up there.”
“Every right. Love gives me the right. And even without that, if a man doesn’t shield a woman from harm—”
“Stop right there.” She held up a hand, palm out, as if to block his words. “This isn’t about men and women. It’s about humans. The seconds you took to think of me, to worry for me could have cost you your life. We can’t spare it, neither of us. Any of us. If you don’t trust that I can defend myself—that all of us can, we’re nowhere.”
That her words made sense didn’t matter a whit as far as he was concerned. He could still see the way that monster had leaped on her. “And where would you be if I hadn’t destroyed that thing?”
“Different. A different matter.” She moved closer now so that he could scent her, the lotions she used on her skin. So utterly female.
“This is foolishness, and a waste of time.”
“It’s not foolish to me, so listen up. Fighting with and protecting fellow soldiers is one thing, a vital thing. We all have to be able to count on each other. But to brush me back from battle is another. You have to understand and accept the difference.”
“How can I, when it’s you, Glenna? If I lost you—”
“Hoyt.” She gripped his arms, a kind of impatient comfort. “Any or all of us might die in this. I’m fighting to understand and accept that. But if you die, I won’t live with the responsibility of knowing it was for me. I won’t do it.”
She sat on the side of the bed. “I killed tonight. I know how it feels to end something. To use my power to do that, something I never thought I’d do, need to do.” She held out her hands to study them. “I did it to save another human being, and still it weighs on me. I know that if I’d done it with stake or sword I’d accept it more easily. But I used magic to destroy.”
She lifted her face to his, and the sorrow was deep in
her eyes. “This gift was always so bright, and now there’s a darkness in it. I have to understand and accept that, too. And you have to let me.”
“I accept your power, Glenna, and what you can and will do with it. I think all of us would be better served by it if you worked solely on the magicks.”
“And left the bloody work to you? Off the front line, out of harm’s way, stirring my cauldron?”
“Twice this night I nearly lost you. So you’ll do as I say.”
It took a moment to find her voice. “Well, in a pig’s eye. Twice this night I faced death, and I survived.”
“We’ll discuss this further tomorrow.”
“Oh no, oh no, we won’t.” She flicked out a hand, slammed the door to the bathroom inches before he reached it.
He whirled back, a man obviously at the end of his tether. “Don’t slap your power out at me.”
“Don’t slap your manhood out at me. And that didn’t come out the way I meant it.” Because there was laughter tickling the back of her throat right along with the temper, she took a breath. “I won’t snap to, Hoyt, when you order it, any more than I expect you will for me. You were frightened for me, and oh boy, do I understand that, because I was frightened for me. And for you, for all of us. But we have to get past it.”
“How?” he demanded. “How is that done? This love is new for me, this need and this terror that goes with it. When we were called for this, I thought it would be the hardest thing I’d ever done. But I was wrong. Loving you is harder, loving you and knowing I could lose you.”
All of her life, she thought, she’d waited to be loved like this. What human didn’t? “I never knew I could feel so completely for anyone. This is new for me, too, hard and scary and new. And I wish I could say you won’t lose me. I wish I could. But I know the stronger I am, the better chance I have of staying alive. The stronger each one of us is, the better chance we have of surviving this. Of winning.”
She stood again. “I looked at King tonight, a man I’d come to like quite a lot. I looked at what they’d made of him. What they made of him wanted my blood, my death, would have rejoiced in it. Seeing that, knowing that, hurt beyond the believing of it. He was a friend. He became a friend so quickly.”
Her voice trembled, so that she had to turn away, move back to the window and the dark. “There was a part of me, even as I tried to save myself, that saw what he had been—the man who’d cooked with me, sat with me, laughed with me. I couldn’t use my powers against him, couldn’t pull it out of me to do that. If Cian hadn’t…” She turned back now, straight and slim.
“I won’t be weak again. I won’t hesitate a second time. You have to trust me for that.”
“You called out for me to run. Would you say that was putting yourself in front of me in battle?”
She opened her mouth, closed it again. Cleared her throat. “Seemed like the thing to do at the time. All right, all right. Point made and taken. We’ll both work on it. And I’ve some ideas on weaponry that might be helpful. But before we put this, and ourselves to bed, I want to cover one more thing.”
“I don’t find myself at all surprised.”
“Fighting with your brother over me isn’t something I appreciate or consider flattering.”
“It wasn’t only about you.”
“I know that. But I was the catalyst. And I’m going to have a word with Moira about it, too. Of course, her idea of distracting Cian from us changed the entire scope of things.”
“It was madness for him to bring those things into the house. His own temper and arrogance could have cost us lives.”
“No.” She spoke quietly now, and with absolute certainty. “He was right to do it.”
Stunned, he gaped at her. “How can you say so? How can you defend him?”
“He made a very big and illuminating point, one we won’t be able to forget. We won’t always know when they’ll come, and we have to be ready to kill or be killed every minute, every day. We weren’t, not really. Even after King, we weren’t. If there’d been more of them, the odds more even, it might’ve been a very different story.”
“He stood by, did nothing.”
“Yes, he did. Another point. He’s the strongest of us, and the smartest in these circumstances. It’s up to us to work toward closing that gap. I have some ideas, at least for the two of us.”
She came to him, rising on her toes to brush her lips over his cheek. “Go ahead, wash up. I want to sleep on it. I want to sleep with you.”
She dreamed of the goddess, of walking through a world of gardens, where birds were bright as the flowers, and the flowers like jewels.
From a high black cliff, water the color of liquid sapphire tumbled down to strike a pool clear as glass where gold and ruby fish darted.
The air was warm and heavy with fragrance.
Beyond the gardens was a silver sickle of beach where the turquoise water lapped its edges gently as a lover. There were children building sparkling castles of sand, or splashing in the foamy surf. Their laughter carried on the air like the birdsong.
Rising from the beach were steps of shimmering white with diamonds of ruby red along their edges. High above them were houses, painted in dreamy pastels, skirted with yet more flowers, with trees that dripped blossoms.
She could hear music drifting down from the tall hill, the harps and flutes singing of joy.
“Where are we?”
“There are many worlds,” Morrigan told her as they walked. “This is just another. I thought you should see that you fight for more than yours, or his, or the world of your friends.”
“It’s beautiful. It feels…happy.”
“Some are, some are not. Some demand a hard life, full of pain and effort. But it is still life. This world is old,” the goddess said, her robes flowing as she opened her arms. “It earned this beauty, this peace, through that pain and that effort.”
“You could stop what’s coming. Stop her.”
Her bright hair dancing in the wind, she turned to Glenna. “I have done what I can to stop it. I have chosen you.”
“It’s not enough. Already we’ve lost one of us. He was a good man.”
“Many are.”
“Is this how fate and destiny work? The higher powers? So coldly?”
“The higher powers bring laughter to those children, they bring the flowers and the sun. Love and pleasures. And yes, death and pain. It must be so.”
“Why?”
Morrigan turned, smiled. “Or it would all mean so little. You are a gifted child. But the gift has weight.”
“I used that gift to destroy. All of my life I’ve believed, been taught, I knew what I had, what I was, could never harm. But I used it to harm.”
Morrigan touched Glenna’s hair. “This is the weight, and it must be carried. You were charged to strike at evil with it.”
“I won’t be the same again,” Glenna stated, looking out to sea.
“No, not the same. And you’re not ready. None of you. You’re not yet whole.”
“We lost King.”
“He isn’t lost. He’s only moved to a different world.”
“We’re not gods, and we grieve for the death of a friend. The cruelty of it.”
“There will be more death, more grieving.”
Glenna closed her eyes. It was harder, even harder, to speak of death when she looked at such beauty. “We’re just full of good news today. I want to go back.”
“Yes, you should be there. She’ll bring blood, and another kind of power.”
“Who will?” Fear had Glenna jerking back. “Lilith? Is she coming?”
“Look there.” Morrigan pointed to the west. “When the lightning strikes.”
The sky went black, and the lightning arrowed out of the sky to strike the heart of the sea.
When she whimpered, turned, Hoyt’s arms came around her.
“It’s dark.”
“Nearly dawn.” He touched his lips to her hair.
“
A storm’s coming. She’s coming with it.”
“Did you dream?”
“Morrigan took me.” She pressed closer. He was warm. He was real. “Some place beautiful. Perfect and beautiful. Then the dark came, and the lightning struck the water. I heard them growling in the dark.”
“You’re here now. Safe.”
“None of us are.” Her mouth lifted, met his desperately. “Hoyt.”
She rose above him, slim and fragrant. White skin against pearled shadows. She took his hands, pressed them to her breasts. Felt his fingers cup her.
Real and warm.
As her heartbeat quickened, the candles around the room began to flicker. In the hearth, the fire woke to simmer.
“There’s a power in us.” She lowered to him, her lips racing over his face, down his throat. “See it. Feel it. What we make together.”
Life, was all she could think. Here was life, hot and human. Here was a power that could strike back the icy fingers of death.
She rose up again, taking him into her, strong and deep. Then bowing back as the thrill washed through her like wine.
He wrapped around her, coming to her so his mouth could take her breast, so he could taste the pounding of her heart. Life, he thought as well. Here was life.
“All that I am.” Already breathless, he feasted on her. “This is more. From the first moment, for the rest of time.”
She took his face, watched herself in his eyes. “In any world. In all of them.”
It poured through her, so fast, so hot, she cried out.
Dawn broke quietly while their passion raged.
“It’s the fire,” Glenna told him.
They were in the tower, sitting over coffee and scones. She had the door firmly locked, and had added a charm to make certain no one and nothing entered until she was finished.
“It’s exciting.” His eyes were still sleepy, his body relaxed.
Sex, Glenna thought, could work wonders. She was feeling pretty damn good herself.