by Nora Roberts
He did it quickly, bracing her back against the tree, pressing his body hard to her as he yanked her shoulder back into place.
She didn’t scream this time. But he was watching her face, and saw her eyes roll up white before she slumped against him.
Ripping the sleeve of his tunic, he used the material to field dress the gash on her thigh before checking along her torso for broken ribs. When he’d done the best he could for her, Larkin laid her down gently before springing up to gather the weapons. After securing them in the harness, he draped it over himself and hoped it would hold.
Shimmered from man to dragon.
He picked her up, cradling her in his claws as if she were made of glass.
“Something’s wrong.” Glenna gripped Moira’s arm as they stood on the practice field working with a handful of the more promising students. “Something bad, big. Wake Cian. Wake him now.”
They both saw the black boil of the sky to the southeast, and the rippling curtain of darkness that fell from it.
“Larkin. Blair.”
“Get Cian,” Glenna repeated, and began to run.
She didn’t have to shout for Hoyt; he was already sprinting toward her. “Lilith,” was all she said.
“Midir, her wizard.” He took hold of her arm, pulling her toward the castle. “This would be his work.”
“She’s already here. Larkin and Blair are out there, out there in the dark. We need to do something, quickly. Counteract the spell. There must be a way.”
“Riddock should send riders out.”
“They’d never get there in time. It’s miles off, Hoyt.”
“They’ll go in any case.”
When they rushed inside, Cian was already coming down, Moira hard on his heels.
“He was already coming,” Moira said.
“I felt the change. False night. I can get there quicker than you, or any mortal.”
“And what good will it do if the sun comes back?” Moira demanded.
“Time I gave that bloody cloak a try.”
“We don’t separate. We can’t risk it. And sending riders, Hoyt.” Glenna shook her head. “They won’t help now. We need a circle, and a counter spell.” Maybe a miracle, she thought. “We need it fast.”
“It has to be outside, under the sky.” Hoyt looked into his brother’s eyes. “Will you risk it? We can try it without you,” he said before Cian could speak. “The three of us.”
“But the odds are better with me. Let’s get it done.”
They gathered what they needed. Hoyt and Glenna were already outside making hurried preparations when Cian came down again with the cloak.
Moira stepped forward when he got to the base of the stairs. “I think faith in your brother will strengthen the spell.”
“Do you?”
“I think,” she said in the same measured tones, “your willingness to risk so much for friends has already given you protection.”
“We’re about to find out.” He swirled the cloak on, pulled the hood up. “Nothing ventured,” he added. And for the first time in nearly a thousand years stepped into the sun.
There was heat. He felt it weigh down on him—lead heated almost to burning. It pressed on his chest, shortened his breath, but he crossed the courtyard.
“I haven’t turned into a human torch yet,” he said, “but I wouldn’t object if this didn’t take long.”
“Fast as we can,” Glenna told him. “Bright blessings on you, Cian.”
“Let’s keep the bright off it, if it’s all the same.”
“Carnelian for speed.” She began placing crystals in a pentagram pattern on the stones. “Sunstone for light. Agates—dendritic for protection, plume for binding.”
Now she took up herbs, dropping them into a bowl. “Garlic for protection. Sorry,” she said to Cian.
“That’s a myth.”
“Okay, good. Holly, restoration of balance. Rose and willow. Power and love. Join hands. Keep yours inside the cloak, Cian, we’ll come to you.”
“Focus,” Hoyt ordered, with his eyes on the black sky, the bubble of night to the south and east. “Draw out what you have. Both of you have power inside you. Draw it out and forge the circle.”
“Guardians of the Watchtowers,” Glenna called out. “We summon you.”
“Of the east, of the south, of the west, of the north, we call your fire to cast here this circle.”
At Hoyt’s words the yellow candles Glenna had chosen to represent the sun sprang to light.
“Morrigan the mighty, join with us now,” he continued. “We are your servants, we are your soldiers.”
Casting her eyes to the sky, Glenna pulled everything she had inside her, and pushed. “Blessed are you and blessed are we who seek to fight this infamy. Magic against magic, white and pure against the black, here springs our power against this attack. Might and right push back the night. With our power joined we raise our cry, break this dark spell in the eastern sky. Hear our love and loyalty. As we will, so mote it be.”
Her hand trembled in Hoyt’s as the power spun round the circle. With her eyes still cast up, she saw the battle rage. Flashing lights, gushing black clashing together like swords to raise a thunder that sent the ground to quiver.
“We refute the dark magicks!” Hoyt shouted. “We cast them back, we cast them out. We call the sun to flame through the false night.”
Overhead the war between the black and the white raged on.
Blair swam dizzily toward consciousness, and into the pain. She felt the wind rush by her, and thought she saw the blur of land below.
Flying? She was flying? Is this what happened after you were dead? But if she was dead, why the hell did she hurt so much?
She tried to move, but she was tied down, strapped in. Or maybe her body simply refused to work any longer. Then she managed to turn her head, and she was looking up at a golden throat.
She thought: Larkin. Then floated away once more.
He felt her stir, gently tightened his grip in hopes it would reassure her, make her feel more secure. He angled his head to look down at her, but her eyes were already closing again.
She looked so pale. She felt so fragile.
He’d left her alone.
He would live, all of his life, he would live with the image of her bleeding, left with nothing more than a tree branch for defense while monsters circled her like vultures.
If he’d been even seconds later, she would be dead. Because he hadn’t been with her. He’d seen to the safety of others, and he’d tarried just a little longer so a young girl could pet his wings.
When the darkness had come, he hadn’t been with her.
The fear ate through him that no matter how fast he’d flown to reach her, no matter if he’d stopped the three demons who’d stalked her from feeding, he’d still been too late to save her life.
Even when he saw the castle, the fear gnawed. He saw Moira rush out, and Hoyt, Glenna, his father and others. But still he knew nothing but that fear.
He’d barely touched the ground when he changed, and held Blair in his arms. “She’s hurt. She’s hurt.”
“Bring her in, quickly.” Sprinting alongside him, Glenna reached over to check the pulse in Blair’s throat. “Up to her room. I’ll get what I need. Moira, go with him, do what you can for her. I’ll be quick.”
“How bad?” Cian swung around to rush up the stairs beside Glenna.
“I don’t know. Pulse is weak, thready. Her face…she took a beating.”
“Bites?”
“I didn’t see any.” She grabbed her healing kit from her room, dashed out again.
Larkin had laid Blair on the bed, and stood as Moira laid hands on Blair’s face, her shoulders, her heart.
“How long has she been unconscious?” Glenna snapped as she swept in.
“I…I don’t know. She fainted,” Larkin managed. “I had to…her shoulder, it was out of the joint. I had to…she fainted when I snapped it back. I think she came around once on the way ba
ck, but I can’t be sure. The dark, it came. I wasn’t with her, and they set on her, and she was alone.”
“You brought her back. Moira, help me get her coat off, her clothes. I have to see where she’s hurt.”
Cian stepped up himself to take off her boots.
“The men should go,” Moira began.
“She isn’t the first I’ve seen naked, and I don’t think she’d be worried about it. How many were there?” Cian asked Larkin.
“She said ten. Ten and the French one as well. There were only three when I got to her.”
“She made them pay.” Cian gently tugged down her pants.
Glenna bit back a sound of distress as she saw the bruising, the cuts. “Ribs.” She made her voice brisk. “Probably kidney. Bruised. Shoulder’s bad, too. The gash on her leg is fairly shallow. But God, her knee. Not broken, at least. Nothing broken.”
“She…” Larkin reached down, took one of Blair’s limp hands. “She said her vision was going double. Concussion, she said.”
Now Glenna spoke gently. “Why don’t you step out? Let Moira and me take care of her.”
“No, I won’t leave her again. She had pain. A lot of pain. You need to give her something that will take away the pain.”
“I will, I promise I’ll give her what I can for it. Why don’t you build up the fire then? I want it warm for her.”
Blair could hear them, the voices. She couldn’t quite separate one from the other or pick out words, but the sounds were enough to assure her she was alive.
The pain spoke to her as well and that told her she’d gotten her ass thoroughly kicked.
She caught scents as well now. Peat smoke, Glenna, and something strong and floral. But when she tried to open her eyes, they wouldn’t cooperate. That had panic trickling into her chest like nasty little drops of acid.
Coma? She didn’t want to be in a coma. People fell into comas and sometimes they never climbed out. She’d rather be dead than trapped inside the dark, hearing, feeling, but not being able to see or speak.
Then she felt something slide over her, like silk. Just a flutter over her skin, under it, then deeper, deeper still to where the pain was clenched in fists.
Then the silk heated, then it burned. Oh God. And the fire of it forced those fists open until the pain spread and broke into a thousand jagged pieces.
Her eyes flew open in blinding light that had her flailing out.
“Son of a bitch!” In her mind she screamed it, but it came out as a hoarse croak.
She sucked in breath to curse again, but the worst of it ebbed and became a slow, steady throbbing.
“It hurts, I know, it hurts to heal. Can you look at me? Blair? No, stay up here now, and look at me.”
Blair forced her eyes open again. Glenna swam into view, her face close. Her hand cupped the back of Blair’s neck, lifted it gently up. “Drink a little of this. Just a little now. I can’t give you too much because of the head trauma. But this will help.”
Blair swallowed, winced. “Tastes like liquid tree bark.”
“Not that far off. Do you know where you are?”
“I’m back.”
“What’s your name?”
“Blair Murphy. Do you want rank and serial number?”
Glenna’s lips curved. “How many fingers?”
“Two and a half. Vision’s a little blurry.” But she struggled to use it, to see. The room was full of people, she realized—the whole team. “Hey. Dorothy, Scarecrow, the Tin Man.” She realized then her hand was gripping Larkin’s, probably hard enough to grind bone to bone. She relaxed her fingers, managed a smile. “Thanks for saving my life back there.”
“It was no trouble. You’d taken care of most of it yourself.”
“I was done.” She closed her eyes again. “Tapped out.”
“I shouldn’t have left you alone.”
“Cut that out.” Blair would have given him a light punch to go with the words if she’d had the strength. “It’s wrong and it’s useless.”
“Why did you?” Cian asked him. “Why did you separate?”
As Larkin told them about the injured man, Blair closed her eyes again. She could hear Glenna and Moira murmuring to each other. Floating a little, she thought Glenna had a voice like silk—sort of sexy and sleek. Moira’s was more like velvet, soft and warm.
And that was a really strange thought, she decided. But at least she was having thoughts.
As they worked on her, the pain bloomed, then backed off, bloomed and died. She began to anticipate the rhythm of it before she made another realization.
“Am I naked?” She would have pushed up to her elbows, at least tried to, if Glenna hadn’t eased her back. “I’m naked. Oh man.”
“You’re covered well enough with a sheet. We had to see your injuries,” Glenna told her. “You’re pretty well covered with gashes and bruises, too, so I wouldn’t worry about modesty right now.”
“My face.” Blair lifted a hand to feel for herself. “How bad is my face?”
“Modesty and vanity,” Glenna said. “Good signs. You wouldn’t make the finals of the Miss Demon Hunter contest at the moment, but you look damn good to me.”
“You’re beautiful.” Larkin took her hand, kissed it. “You couldn’t be more beautiful.”
“That bad, huh? Well, I heal fast. Not as fast as you guys,” she said to Cian, “but fast enough.”
“Can you tell us what happened when you and Larkin were apart?” Hoyt touched her ankle. “He said there were ten.”
“Yeah, ten, and Lora, so that’s eleven. Trap worked. Dead horse down there, and weapons. We should get those weapons. They were in the ground.”
“The weapons?” Hoyt prompted.
“No, the vamps. Dug into the ground. Trap in a trap. It got dark—bam. Like a solar eclipse, but faster. And they came up out of the ground. I got the first two before they got all the way out. Realized after, later, they weren’t trying to kill me—which to be honest, is why I’m not dead. They were just softening me up for her. Cowardly bitch.”
“But you killed her.”
She shook her head at Larkin, and immediately regretted the movement. “No. Don’t think so. Couldn’t have taken her in a fight, could barely keep my feet. She knew it. Comes strutting out, talking trash. Thinks she’ll make me her lesbian vamp lover. As if. She’s hurting now, too, oh yeah. And she doesn’t look so good either. Water bag.”
“Holy water,” Larkin murmured. “Aren’t you the clever one?”
“Everything’s a weapon. I tossed as much as I could into her face. Hit her, too. Face, down the throat. I heard her screaming when she ran off. But that was it for me, pretty much all I had left. Good thing you came.”
“You had a branch.”
“A branch of what?”
“A tree branch,” he told her, kissing her fingers again. “You were swinging a tree branch.”
“Yeah. Huh, good for me. It’s sort of blurry here and there.”
“That’s enough for now.” Glenna held the cup back to Blair’s lips. “A little more of this.”
“Rather have a frozen margarita.”
“Who wouldn’t?” Glenna passed a hand over Blair’s face. “Now sleep.”
Chapter 20
She swam in and out, and the pain was waiting each time she surfaced. Weakness would drag her under again, but not before she heard whispers and murmurs. Not before she heard herself answering questions that seemed to be peppered over her every time she came back to the world.
Why wouldn’t they just let her sleep?
Then someone would pour more tree bark down her throat, and she’d float away again.
Sometimes when she floated she went back to that field and relived every blow, every block, every movement of what she’d believed were the last moments of her life.
Sometimes she simply floated into nothing.
Larkin sat beside her, watching as Moira and Glenna took turns tending her. Watching as one of them came i
n to light candles, or add turf to the fire. Or just lay a hand over Blair’s brow to check for fever.
Every two hours by the clock, one of them would wake her, ask questions of her. Because of the concussion, Glenna had said. It was a precaution because she’d suffered such hard blows to her head.
Then he would think what might have happened if one of those blows had knocked her unconscious, what they would have done to her while she was alone.
Every time he thought of it, imagined it, he’d take her hand to feel her pulse beat under the scar on her wrist.
He passed the time talking nonsense to her, and for a time playing the pipe that Moira had brought to him. He thought—he hoped—she rested easier with the music.
“You should go, rest now for an hour or two.” Moira stroked a hand down her hair as she spoke. “I’ll sit with her.”
“I can’t.”
“No. Nor could I in your place. She’s so strong, Larkin, and Glenna so skilled. I wish you wouldn’t worry so.”
“I didn’t know it was inside me. That I could feel so much for one person. That I could know, without question, without a single doubt, that this woman is…well, everything there is for me.”
“I knew it. Not that it would be her, but that there would be someone. And that when you found her, she’d change everything.” Moira bent to press her lips to the top of his head. “I’m a little jealous. Do you mind?”
“No.” He turned her head, pressed his face to her side. “I’ll love you all my life. I think I could be a thousand miles from you, and still reach out my hand and touch yours.”
Tears stung Moira’s eyes. “I couldn’t have chosen better for you if I’d chosen her myself. Still, she’s the luckiest of women.”
“She’s waking.”
“All right, talk to her now. We’ll keep her with us a few moments, then I’ll give her more medicine.”
“There you are.” Larkin spoke quietly, standing to take her hand. “Mo chroi. Open your eyes.”
“What?” They fluttered open. “What is it?”
“Give me your name now.”
“Scarlett O’Hara. Can’t you remember it for five minutes?” she said testily. “Blair Murphy. I don’t have brain damage. I’m just tired and annoyed.”