A Little Magic(10)

“Crazy is what you are.” He started to turn.

“Hold!” She drew in a breath, and the wind whipped again, wild and wailing. His feet were cemented to the spot. “See,” she ordered and flung a hand down toward the ground between them.

It was the first charm learned, the last lost. Though her hand trembled with the effort, the fire erupted, burning cold and bright.

He swore and would have leaped back if he’d been able. There was no wood, there was no match, just that golden ball of flame shimmering at his feet. “What the hell is this?”

“Proof, if you’ll take it.” Over the flames, she reached out a hand. “I’ve called to you in the night, Calin, but you wouldn’t hear me. But you know me—you know my face, my mind, my heart. Can you look at me and deny it?”

“No.” His throat was dust-dry, his temples throbbing. “No, I can’t. But I don’t want this.”

Her hand fell to her side. The fire vanished. “I can’t make you want. I can only make you see.” She swayed suddenly, surprising them both.

“Hey!” He caught her as her legs buckled.

“I’m just tired.” She struggled to find her pride at least, to pull back from him. “Just tired, that’s all.”

She’d gone deathly pale, he noted, and she felt as limp as if every bone in her body had melted. “This is crazy. This whole thing is insane. I’m probably just having another hallucination.”

But he swept her up into his arms and carried her down the circle of stone steps and away from the Castle of Secrets.





4




“BRANDY,” he muttered, shouldering open the door to the cottage. The cat slipped in like smoke and led the way down the short hall. “Whiskey. Something.”

“No.” Though the weakness still fluttered through her, she shook her head. “I’m better now, truly.”

“The hell you are.” She felt fragile enough to dissolve in his arms. “Have you got a doctor around here?”

“I don’t need a doctor.” The idea of it made her chuckle a little. “I have what I need in the kitchen.”

He turned his head, met her eyes. “Potions? Witch’s brews?”

“If you like.” Unable to resist, she wound her arms around his neck. “Will you carry me in, Calin? Though I’d prefer it if you carried me upstairs, took me to bed.”

Her mouth was close to his, already softly parted in invitation. He felt his muscles quiver. If he was caught in a dream, he mused, it involved all of the senses and was more vivid than any he’d had in childhood.

“I didn’t know Irish women were so aggressive. I might have visited here sooner.”

“I’ve waited a long time. I have needs, as anyone.”

Deliberately he turned away from the steps and started down the hall. “So, witches like sex.”

That chuckle came again, throaty and rich. “Oh, aye, we’re fond of it. I could give you more than an ordinary woman. More than you could dream.”

He remembered the jolt of that staggering kiss of welcome. And didn’t doubt her word. He made a point of dropping her, abruptly, on one of the two ladder-back chairs at a scrubbed wooden table in the tiny kitchen.

“I dream real good,” he said, and she smiled silkily.

“That I know.” The air hummed between them before she eased back, tidily folded her hands on the table. “There’s a blue bottle in the cupboard there, over the stove. Would you mind fetching it for me, and a glass as well?”

He opened the door she indicated, found the cupboard neatly lined with bottles of all colors and shapes. All were filled with liquids and powders, and none were labeled. “Which one of these did you put in my tea?”

Now she sighed, heavily. “Cal, I put nothing in your tea but the whiskey. I gave you sleep—a small spell, and a harmless one—because you needed it. Two hours only, and did you not wake feeling well and rested?”

He scowled at the bottles, refusing to argue the point. “Which blue one?”

“The cobalt bottle with the long neck.”

He set the bottle and a short glass on the table. “Drugs are dangerous.”

She poured a careful two fingers of liquid as blue as the bottle that held it. “’Tis herbs.” Her eyes flickered up to his, laughed. “And a touch or two of magic. This is for energy and strength.” She sipped with apparent enjoyment. “Will you be sitting down, Calin? You could use a meal, and it should be ready by now.”

He’d already felt his stomach yearn at the scents filling the room, puffing out of the steam from a pot on the stove.