A Little Magic(19)

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.”





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 swirling 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?