by Nora Roberts
“I’m not like women anyone knows.”
The easy smile faded. “You think that’s a flaw in you, a fault, or…a barrier,” he decided. “Something that makes you less appealing than other women. That’s false. When I say you’re not like other women, I mean you’re more interesting, more exciting. More alluring. Stop.”
The sudden and unexpected irritation in his voice put her back up. “Stop what?”
“You put that face on. The one that says bullshit. I like charming the ladies, for it doesn’t do a bit of harm.” He waited, and this time Blair could see he had to put some effort into smiling at the waitress when she served them. “Thanks for that.” Then he lifted the pint glass, took a long, slow sip.
“You’re pissed,” she murmured, recognizing the glint in his eye. “What have you got to be pissed about?”
“I don’t like the way you demean yourself.”
“Demean my—are you whacked?”
“Just be quiet. I said I like charming the ladies, and I do. I enjoy a flirt here and there, and a tumble when I can get one. But I don’t hurt women, not with my hands, not with my words. I don’t lie. So when I tell you how I see you, it’s the simple truth of it. I think you’re magnificent.”
He drank again, nodding when she only stared at him. “Well, that put the cork back in you right enough. Magnificent,” he repeated. “In face and form, in your heart and your mind. Magnificent because of what you do every day, and have done for years, since you were all but a babe. I’ve never known another like you, and never will. I’m telling you that if a man looks at you and doesn’t see what a wonder you are, it’s his vision that’s at fault, and not a bit of you.”
Chapter 6
They fell back into routine, training, strategizing. From the rumbles and flashes coming from the tower, Blair knew there was magic in the work as well.
But what they were doing, under it all, she thought, was waiting.
“We have to make a move.” She plowed rapid punches into the heavy bag they’d hung at one end of the once-grand ballroom. “We’re caught in a loop, and it’s time to do something. Shake things up.”
“I’m for that.” Larkin watched her, wondering how many levels of frustration she worked through by beating up a big hanging sack. “A daylight attack on the caves is what I was thinking.”
“Been there.” She pummelled—left, left, right. “Done that.”
“No, we went there, but we didn’t do the attacking now, did we?”
Annoyed because he was right—worse because he wasn’t mentioning the fact she’d been the one to be so nearly used after the mission to Kerry—she shot him a glance. “We go in, we’re dead. Or most of us.”
“That may be, but we’re likely to die in any case before the end of this thing.”
Hard truth, she thought. She had to respect it. “Yeah, odds are.”
“So there could be a way to give them something to think about without actually going inside and hastening that eventuality. Though I’d like a chance at that—deviling them on their own ground for a change.” He picked up a stake, hurled it at the practice dummy.
She understood the sentiment, and felt the same. But knew better. “Whenever possible, you don’t fight on their terms, or their turf. The caves are suicide.”
“Could be for them, if we lit them up.”
She pulled the next punch, turned to him. “Lit them up?”
“Fire. But it would have to be the two of us. The others, Moira in particular, would never agree to it.”
Intrigued, she began to unwrap her hands. “I meant to ask you before. The dragon suit. You breathe fire?”
He goggled at her. “Breathe fire?”
“Yeah. Dragons breathe fire, right?”
“No. Why would they want to do that? How could they?”
“That begs the question how can a man turn into one, but okay, another fantasy crushed. So how do you intend to fire up the caves?”
He lifted a sword. “It would only take one of us to get close enough, a few feet in. I’d enjoy that. But…” He set the sword down again. “A more practical manner would be flaming arrows.”
“Shooting flaming arrows into caves in broad daylight. Well, that shouldn’t draw too much attention. I’m not shutting you down,” she added before he could speak. “An earthquake and a dragon flight barely made anyone blink. People have blinders. But there’s another factor. There are still people in there.”
“I know it. Can we save them?”
“Highly unlikely.”
“If I were locked in a cage, waiting to be a meal for one of those things, or changed into one, I’d rather burn. You said the same before.”
“I don’t think you’re wrong, but we’d need a full-on attack to make a dent. And you’re not wrong either when you say we’d never talk the others into it.” She walked over to study his face. “And you’re saying it, but you couldn’t do it. Not when it came down to it.”
He strode over to yank the stake from the dummy. He wanted to be able to do it, in his head. But in his heart…that was another thing altogether. “Could you?”
“Yeah, I could. Then I’d have to live with it, and I would. I’ve been fighting this war all my life, Larkin. You don’t get through it without casualties. Innocent casualties—collateral damage. If I thought we could end it this way, or put a serious hurt on Lilith, I’d have already done it.”
“And you think I can’t.”
“I know you can’t.”
“Because I’m weak?”
“No. Because you’re not hard.”
He pivoted, hurled the stake, hit the heart of the practice dummy. “And you are?”
“I have to be. You haven’t seen what I’ve seen, and for all you know, you still don’t know what I know. I have to be hard. What I am makes me hard.”
“What you are, a warrior, a hunter, is a gift and a duty. To harden around it, that’s a choice. I can do what needs to be done, and if this was the way, this sacrifice of men, I would live with it. It would hurt me, and it would weigh on me, but I would do what needed to be done.”
Enough weight, she thought as he left her, you get hard, or you break under it.
And this is why she worked alone, she reminded herself. Why she was alone. So she didn’t have to explain herself, or justify herself. Why she’d accepted, after Jeremy, that the only way to do what she’d been born to do, was to stay alone.
She heard a muffled boom from overhead in the tower, glanced up. Sure some people found it—that intimacy, that unity—and made it work. But they had to understand each other first, and accept all the dark places. To not just tolerate them, but embrace them.
And that, when it came to her and her life, just wasn’t in the cards. She rewrapped her hands, and went back to pummelling the heavy bag.
“Someone you know?” Cian asked from the doorway.
She barely spared him a glance. She was using her feet now as well as her hands. Side kicks, back kicks, double jumps. She’d worked up enough of a sweat that her breath was short and choppy. “Tenth-grade algebra teacher.”
“I’m sure she deserves a good hiding. Ever found a use for that? The algebra business.”
“Not a one.”
He watched her get a running start, and hit the bag with a flying kick that nearly snapped it off its chain. “Nice form. Oddly, I see Larkin’s face on that bag.” He smiled a little when she stopped to catch her breath and gulp down water. “I just passed him going down. He looked annoyed—a rarity for him, as he’s an affable sort, isn’t he?”
“I bring annoyance out in people.”
“True enough. He’s a likable boy.”
“I like him okay.”
“Hmm.” Cian crossed over to pick up several knives, then began to throw them at the target across the room. “When you’ve been around humans as long as I have you recognize traits and signals. And, if you’re me, you have a curiosity about their choices. So I wonder why the two of you don�
�t just have at each other. Dangerous times, possible end of days, and so on.”
Her back went up, she could literally feel the shift in her spine. “I don’t just roll with any guy who’s handy—if it’s any of your business.”
“Your choice, of course.” He walked over, tugged out the knives. When he came back, he handed them to her in an easy, almost companionable gesture. “But I think it’s a bit more than him being in the vicinity and available.”
She gave the knife a testing toss in the air, then hurled it at the target. Hit dead center. “Why this sudden interest in my sex life?”
“Just a study of human reactions. My brother walked out of his world and into this one. The goddess pointed the direction, and he followed.”
“He didn’t just follow the goddess.”
“No,” Cian said after a moment. “He came to find me. We’re twins, after all, and the attachment runs deep. Added to it, he’s by nature dutiful and loyal.”
This time she walked over to retrieve the knives. “He’s also powerful and courageous.”
“He is, yes.” Cian took them, threw them. “The odds are I’ll watch him die. That’s not something I’d choose. Even if he survives this, he’ll grow old, his body will shut down, and he’ll die.”
“Cheery, aren’t you? It could be peacefully in his sleep, after a long full life. Maybe after a last bout of really great sex.”
Cian smiled a little, but it didn’t reach those cool blue eyes. “Whether it’s by violence or nature, the result is the same. I’ve seen more death than you, more than you ever will. But still, you’ve seen more than most humans have or will. And that separates us, you and me, from the rest.”
“We don’t have any choice about that.”
“Of course we do. I know a bit about loneliness, and what can chase it back, even for the short run.”
“So I should jump Larkin because I’m lonely?”
“That would be one answer.” Cian retrieved the knives again, and this time replaced them. “The other might be to take a closer look at him, and at what he sees when he looks at you. Meanwhile, the tension and repression gives you a nice edge. Want to go a round or two?”
“Wouldn’t say no.”
She felt better. Bruised but better. Nothing like a good grapple with a vampire—even one who didn’t want to kill you—to clear the head. She’d just go down and grab something to eat before the evening training session.
But first she was going to stop by her room and rub some of Glenna’s magic cream into the bruises.
She walked into her room, and onto the rise above the Valley of Silence.
“Oh crap. Crap, crap. I don’t need to see this again.”
“You do.” Morrigan stood beside her, pale blue robes fluttering in the wind. “You need to know it, every rock, every drop, every blade of grass. This is your battleground. This will be the stand of humankind. Not the caves in Kerry.”
“So we just wait?”
“There will be more than waiting. You are hunter and hunted now. What you do, what you choose to do, brings you closer to this.”
“One battle.” Suddenly weary, Blair raked a hand through her hair. “Everything else is just another skirmish leading here. It’s all about this. Will it end it?”
Morrigan turned those emerald eyes to Blair’s. “It never ends. You know this, in every part of you, you know this single truth. But if she defeats you on this ground, worlds will be tossed into chaos. There will be suffering, death and torment for a time beyond imagining.”
“Got that. What’s the good news?”
“Everything you need to take this ground is within you. Your circle has the power to win this war.”
“But not end it.” Blair looked over the ground again, the misery of it. “It’s never going to end for me.”
“The choice is yours, child, has always been yours.”
“I wish I could walk away. Some days I wish that, and others…Others I think wow, look what I’m doing, what I can do. And it makes me feel, well, righteous, I guess. Right, anyway. But some days when I go home after a hunt and there’s no one there, it all seems too hard, and too empty.”
“You should have been cared for, and were not,” Morrigan said, gently now. “And still, all that came before, all that comes now has made you. You have more than one battle to win, more than one quest. And always, child, more than one choice.”
“Turning away isn’t a choice for me. So we’ll come here, and we’ll win. Because that’s what we have to do. I’m not afraid to die. Can’t say I look forward to it, but I’m not afraid.”
She looked back at the ground, the way the mists filled the pockets in the earth, the way the rocks speared up through it. Now, as always, the look of it shuddered through her. Now, as always, she saw herself lying bloody there. Ended.
She nearly asked if what she saw was truth or imagination, but knew the god wouldn’t answer.
“So if I go,” Blair decided, “I’m taking a hell of a lot of them with me.”
“In one week, you, the circle of six, will go to the Dance of the Gods, and from there to Geall.”
Blair turned away from the drop now to look into Morrigan’s face. “One week.”
“One week from this day. You’ve done what needed to be done here. You’ve gathered together, and now, together, you’ll make this journey to Geall.”
“How?”
“You’ll know. In one week. You must trust those with you, and what you hold inside you. If the circle doesn’t reach Geall, and come to this place at the appointed time, this world, yours, and all the others are plunged into the dark.”
The sun went out. In the black, Blair heard the screams, the howls, the weeping. The air suddenly stank with blood.
“You’re not alone,” Morrigan told her. “Not even here.”
She snapped back, and stared into Larkin’s eyes. She felt his fingers digging into her shoulders.
“There you are, there you are now.” She was too stunned to evade when he pulled her into his arms, wrapped them around her like bands as he pressed his lips to her hair. “There you are,” he repeated. “Was it the vampire?”
“No. Wow. You need to turn me loose.”
“In a minute or two. You’re shaking.”
“I don’t think so. I think that’s you.”
“It may be. I know you scared six lives out of me.” He drew her back, barely an inch. “You were just standing there, just standing, staring. You didn’t hear me when I spoke to you. Didn’t see me when I was right in front of you. And your eyes…” He pressed his lips to her forehead now, firmly, the way she imagined parents checked a child for fever. “So dark, so deep.”
“It was Morrigan. She took me on a little excursion. I’m okay.”
“Do you want to lie down, to rest? Steady yourself a bit. I’ll stay with you.”
“No, I said I’m fine. I thought you were mad at me.”
“I was—am a bit. You’re a frustrating creature, Blair, and I’ve never had to put so much work into wooing a woman.”
“Woo?” Something snapped shut in her throat. “I don’t like the whole woo thing.”
“That’s clear enough, but I do. And a man has to please himself as well as the woman who’s caught his eye, doesn’t he? But in any case, whether or not I’m annoyed and frustrated, I wouldn’t leave you alone.”
They always do, a little voice whispered in her head. Sooner or later. “I’m okay. Just a little wigged out at getting a message from the land of the gods.”
“What is the message?”
“Better get everyone together and deliver it all at once. In the library,” she decided. “It’s the best setup.”
She paced, waiting for Hoyt and Glenna. Apparently, magic couldn’t be interrupted even by messages from gods. Struggling against impatience, she toyed with the two crosses around her neck. One, she’d worn nearly all her life. It had come down through her family, through Nola, and all the way back to Hoyt. Morri
gan’s Cross, one of those given to him at the onset of this battle while he was still in his own time.
The second, he and Glenna had forged with silver and fire and magic. A team emblem, she supposed, as much as a shield, which each of them—but Cian—wore at all times.
The first had saved her life once, she remembered. So magic, she supposed, had priority over impatience.
Still, when Moira offered her tea, she shook her head.
Already she was going over in her mind what had to be done—and she didn’t like most of it. Still, it was movement, and that’s what they wanted. What they needed.
“There are two outside,” Moira said quietly. “We haven’t seen any for days, but there are two out there now, just at the edge of the trees.”
Blair moved to the window beside her, scanned. “Yeah, I see them. Just barely.”
“Should I get my bow?”
“That’s a long shot in the dark.” Then Blair shrugged. “Sure, why not? Even if you don’t hit one, it’ll show them we’re not sleeping.”
Blair glanced around as Moira went out. Cian was sprawled in a chair with a glass of wine and a book. Larkin sat on the couch, sipping at a beer and watching her.
She didn’t want the tea Moira had brought in, didn’t want to be soothed by it. Nor did she want alcohol to dull the edge.
So she paced a little more, stood at the window again. She saw the vampire on the left poof. She hadn’t even seen the arrow, but she saw the second vamp fade back into the trees.
No, we’re not sleeping, she thought.
“Sorry that took so long, but we couldn’t leave that in the middle. Tea. Perfect.” Glenna went directly to the table when they came in, poured a cup for herself and for Hoyt. “Is something up?”
“Yeah. Moira will be right back. She just went up to take out one of the vamps outside.”
“Oh.” Glenna let out a little gush of breath as she sat. “So they’re back. Well, it was nice while it lasted.”
“I could only get one.” Moira came in with her bow. “It was too dark to see the second, and I’d have likely wasted an arrow.” But she propped the bow and her quiver by the window, in case she had another chance.