A Little Magic(24)

“Bryna.”

“She waits for you.” The woman with the straw hat over her red hair looked up from her weeding and smiled sadly. “She always has, and always will.”

His side burned from cramping muscles. Gasping for air, Cal pressed a hand against the pain. “Who are you?”

“She has a mother who loves her, a father who fears for her. Do you think that those who hold magic need family less than you? Have hearts less fragile? Needs less great?”

With a weary sigh, she rose, walked toward him and stepped into the break in the hedge. Her eyes were green, he saw, and filled with worry, but the mouth with its serious smile was Bryna’s.

“You question what she is—and what she is bars you from giving your heart freely. Knowing this, and loving you, she has sent you away from danger and faces the night alone.”

“Sent me where? How? Who are you?”

“She’s my child,” the woman said, “and I am helpless.” The smile curved a little wider. “Almost helpless. Look to the clearing, Calin Farrell, and take what is offered to you. My daughter waits. Without you, she dies this night.”

“Dies?” Terror gripped his belly. “Am I too late?”

She only shook her head and faded back into air.

He awoke, drenched with sweat, stretched out on the cool, damp grass of the bank. And the moon was rising in a dark sky.

“No.” He stumbled to his feet, found the sweater clutched in his hand. “I won’t be too late. I can’t be too late.” He dragged the sweater over his head as he ran.

Now the trees lashed, whipped by a wind that came from nowhere and howled like a man gone mad. They slashed at him, twined together like mesh to block his path with gnarled branches armed with thorns. He fought his way through, ignored the gash that sliced through denim into flesh.

Overhead, lighting cut like a broadsword and dimmed the glow of the full white moon.

Alasdair. Hate roiled up inside him, fighting against the love he’d only just discovered. Alasdair would not win, if he had to die to prevent it.

“Bryna.” He lifted his head to the sky as it exploded with wild, furious rain. “Wait for me. I love you.”

The stag stood before him, white as bone, its patient eyes focused. Cal rushed forward as it turned and leaped into the shadows. With only instinct to trust, he plunged into the dark to follow the trail. The ground trembled under his feet, thorns ripped his clothes to tatters as he raced to keep that flash of white in sight.

Then it was gone as he fell bleeding into a clearing where moonlight fought through the clouds to beam on a jet-black horse.

Without hesitation, Calin accepted the impossible. Taking the reins, he vaulted into the saddle, his knees vising as the stallion reared and trumpeted a battle cry. As he rode, he heard the snap of a cloak flying and felt the hilt of a sword gripped in his own hand.





9




THE Castle of Secrets glimmered with the light of a thousand torches. Its walls glinted silver and speared up toward the moon. The stone floor of the great hall was smooth as marble. In the center of the charmed circle cast by the ancients, Bryna stood in a robe of white, her hair a fall of fire, her eyes the blue of heated steel.

Here she would make her stand.

“Do you call the thunder and whistle up the winds, Alasdair? Such showmanship.”

In a swirl of smoke, a sting of sulphur, he appeared before her. Solid now, his flesh as real as hers. He wore the robes of crimson, of blood and power. His golden looks were beautiful, an angel’s face but for the contrast of those dark, damning eyes.

“And an impressive, if overdone entrance,” Bryna said lightly, though her pulse shuddered.

“Your trouble, my darling, is that you fail to appreciate the true delights of power. Contenting yourself with your woman’s charms and potions when worlds are at your mercy.”

“I take my oath, and my gifts, to heart, Alasdair. Unlike you.”

“My only oath is to myself. You’ll belong to me, Bryna, body and soul. And you will give me what I want the most.” He flung up a hand so that the walls shook. “Where is the globe?”

“Beyond you, Alasdair, where it will remain. As I will.” She gestured sharply, shot a bolt of white light into the air to land and burn at his feet. A foolish gesture, she knew, but she needed to impress him.

He angled his head, smiled indulgently. “Pretty tricks. The moon is rising to midnight, Bryna. The time of waiting is ending. Your warrior has deserted you once again.”

He stepped closer, careful not to test the edge of the circle and his voice became soft, seductive. “Why not accept—even embrace—what I offer you? Lifetimes of power and pleasure. Riches beyond imagination. You have only to accept, to take my hand, and we will rule together.”