“Just have a good time of it.” She moved them along, friends and family, up to waving them away from the front door of the cottage.
And stood there a moment longer in the chilly dark.
“All right then, it’s just you and me as you wanted.” Connor laid a hand on her shoulder. “What is it?”
He wouldn’t look, Branna thought. Though she knew how to block him, he wouldn’t draw on her heart or mind. He’d consider it an intrusion.
“I don’t mean to cut Iona out, and she’s proven herself, God knows.”
“But you’re still getting used to her—and used to the others, all being part of it. Makes you feel tight in your skin, doesn’t it, all these people crowding you?”
How he knew her, she thought, and thank all the gods for it, and him. “It does, yes. How we ever came from the same parents is a wonder. Nothing suits you more than a crowd, and nothing suits me less.”
“Keeps us balanced.”
“Seems it does, and I’m thinking balance might be the thing.”
“Ostara, the equinox, the balance of day to night? Rather than the solstice?”
“I’ve thought of it—as obviously you have as well—but the time’s just too short to prepare it all, as it’s nearly on us.”
“I didn’t think her ready, our Iona,” he admitted, “but I wonder if I was wrong about that.”
“She needs more seasoning, to my mind. And deserves it as well. The solstice is close enough, and that’s a kind of balance as well. That tipping point of the year. It may be a chance. If you’d work with me a bit now. Just putting our heads together.”
He touched his forehead to hers. “A ritual, a spell of balancing—and banishing at the moment day holds longest—then slides into its ebbing.”
“There, you see. I don’t have to explain to you, so it goes easier.”
“What you’re thinking won’t come within a league of easy, but it might work. We’ll see what we can put together. Just us two for now, and the rest soon enough.”
They went to the workshop together, with Branna trying not to feel guilty over the relief that it was just the two of them, at least for now.
* * *
“I EMBARRASSED YOU,” IONA SAID WHILE THEY MADE THE SHORT DRIVE TO BOYLE’S.
“What? No. I’m not embarrassed.”
“A little. I probably should’ve said something about staying with you tonight when there weren’t other people around. I never think about things like that. And it occurred to me too late to consider you might not have wanted company.”
“You’ve stopped being company.”
What did it say about her that she found the careless comment romantic? Oh well.
“Then it occurred to me you’d have had no problem saying no, and you’d pick me up in the morning.”
“Do I look thickheaded to you?”
“Not a bit.”
“I’d have to be not to want to spend the night with you, wouldn’t I?”
More romance, she thought, Boyle McGrath–style. “But I shouldn’t have announced it like the minutes of the next meeting. If we took minutes.”
“It’s a private thing.”
“I get that, and it would be. Or I’d try harder there. But it seems to me, the way things are, privacy’s not really on the table. That’s harder for you than it is for me.”
“It may be, but you’re right. There are more immediate things to worry about.”
He pulled in right behind Fin, jiggled his keys as he got out.
“Good night then,” Fin called out, “and enjoy tomorrow.”
“I’ll have my mobile if there’s a need.”
Iona bumped against Boyle as they climbed the stairs to his rooms. “It is harder on you. But Fin’s got to be used to you bringing a date back with you now and then, and you with him doing the same.”
“I don’t bring women here. As a rule,” he said after a moment.
“Oh.” Privacy, she thought, and more. “If you go to their place, you can leave when you want.”
“There’s that.” He stepped inside.
“You need to tell me when you want me to go. I’d rather be told than tolerated.”
“I don’t tolerate much.” He tossed his keys in a bowl. “I’m not tolerating you.”
It made her smile. “Good. Don’t. It’s miserable to be tolerated.”
He set her little bag on a chair. “If I didn’t want you here, you’d be somewhere else. Do you want something to drink?”
“I thought I wasn’t company anymore.”
“You’re right.”
He grabbed her the way she liked, pulled her through to the bedroom. “You can get your own drink after.”
“I’ll get you one, too.” She yanked his jacket off his shoulders and away. “Boots,” she said and made him laugh.
“I’m aware of the order of things.”
And still they dived toward the bed. Pulling, tugging, then tossing boots.
“We broke something last time,” she remembered as she rushed to unbutton his shirt. “What was it?”
“My grandmother’s crystal vase.”
Her fingers stilled, her eyes widened in distress. Then he grinned.
“Oh! Liar!” She threw a leg over him, shoved him onto his back. “You’re going to pay for that.” Crossing her arms, she grabbed the hem of her sweater, pulled it over her head, winged it over her shoulder.
“I’ll pay more,” he told her. He slid his hands up her sides, over her br**sts as she fought open the last buttons.
“You bet you will, buddy.” She lowered her head, catching his mouth in a crushing kiss before scraping her teeth over his bottom lip, ending with a nip.
He retaliated by flipping her over, doing the same.
They wrestled off clothes, wrestled each other in a rush of give-and-take.
So much the same, she thought, wonderfully the same, but now she knew what they could bring to each other. All heat and demand and speed, like flying through fire—simmers and flashes and bursts.
She reveled in the thrill of skin sliding against skin—his to hers, hers to his—the heady friction of it. His mouth, dark with hunger, his hands, rough with greed, raced over her.
How had she lived without knowing what it was to be wanted so completely, so urgently, so thoroughly?
She needed to give him the same, to show him how the want for him flooded through her.
He couldn’t get enough of her. Whatever he took only sparked a bright hot need for more. When he had her like this, moving, moving in the dark, he couldn’t think, could only feel.
And she made him feel drunk, half-mad with it. Made him feel strong as a god, reckless as a cornered wolf.
The world outside dissolved; time spun away.
Just her body, the shape of her, those sleek muscles under smooth skin. The sound of her—breath and sigh and soft, soft moan. And her taste, so hot and sweet.
She struggled up, fast hands, quick legs, to straddle him, and starlight caught in the crown of her hair like diamonds.
She took him in, fast and deep, her hands pressed to her own br**sts as the first wave of ecstasy swamped her.
Then she rode, free and wild, starlight on her skin, dark triumph in her eyes.
He gripped her hips, clinging to her and some last thread of sanity.
And she lifted her arms high, crying out in that same dark triumph.
Flames shimmered at her fingertips, tiny pinpoints of light that flashed, bright and blinding as the sun. Stunned by them, bewitched by her, he held on—and he let go.
* * *
IN THE DARK, IN THE DREAM, SHE REACHED FOR HIM.
“Do you hear that? Do you hear that?”
“It’s just the wind.”
“No.” The woods were so thick, the night so black. Where was the moon? Why was there no moon, no stars?
And with a shudder, she understood. “It’s in the wind.”
Her name, the seductive pull of the whisper. A stroke of silk on bare skin.
“You need to sleep.”
“But I am. Aren’t I?”
When she shivered again, he rubbed her chilled hands between his. “We should have a fire.”
“It’s so dark. It’s too dark, too cold.”
“I know the way home. Don’t fret now.”
He began to guide her, through the trees, away from the little licks of fog that flicked, sly as the tongue of a snake, along the ground.
“Don’t let go,” she said as the whisper slid and stroked over her skin.
“The way’s blocked, do you see?” He gestured to the thick branches blocking the path. “I’ll need to move them before we can get through.”
“No!” On a spur of panic, she gripped his hand tighter. “It’s what he wants. Just like before, to separate us. We have to stay together. We have to hold on.”
“The way’s blocked, Iona.” He turned her now, looked into her eyes. His were dark gold, intense, unwavering. “We should have a fire.”
“The fog’s closer. Can you hear it?”
The wolf now, just the faintest growl through the black, through the fog.
“I hear it. Fire, Iona. It’s what we need.”
Fire, she thought. Against the dark, against the cold.
Fire. Of course.
She threw her arms out, out, lifted her face up. And called it.
Strong, bright, with a whip-snap that lashed through the creeping fog, made it boil, made it steam and die to thin black ash.
“To the dark I bring the light. Against the black I forge the white. From my blood I call the fire to burn, to flame high and higher. Awake or in dreams, my power runs free. As I will, so mote it be.”
A curl of fog snuck out, slithered close. Boyle lunged in front of Iona, threw out a fist.
He felt a quick pain across his knuckles. Then both fog and ash vanished, and there was only fire and light.
She saw blood well up across Boyle’s hand.
And woke with a jolt.
Morning, she saw now, the pearly promise of it glowing against the window.
A dream, just a dream, and she took a breath to steady herself. When Boyle sat up beside her, she reached for his hand.
And saw the blood.
“Oh God.”
“In the woods, together.” His fingers curled tight over hers. “Is that how it was?”
She nodded. “It’s a kind of astral projection, I think. We’re here, but we were there. I must have pulled you in with me. You . . . You hit out at the fog.”
“It worked, and felt fine as well, though your fire did more.”
“No, yes. I don’t know. You struck out, and it was like you punched a hole, for a moment. I . . . But you’re bleeding.”
“Sure it’s but a scratch.”
“No, it’s from him. I don’t know if it’s just a scratch.” She could call on Connor or Branna, but she felt, somehow, this was for her to do.
“I need to fix it.”
“Just needs a quick wash, and ointment if you’re going to fuss about it.”
“Not that way.” Her heart beat so fast now, faster, she realized, than it had, even through the fear of the dream.