Face the Fire - Nora Roberts

[Dalyia]

[Dalyia]

“ ‘Take her,’ she said to me. ‘She needs love and care, and a firm hand. They won’t give it to her, they can’t. And when I’m gone, she’ll only have you.’ I told her I didn’t know how to take care of a baby, and she smiled at me, and just kept holding Mia out. Mia started to squirm and fuss, shake her fists, and before I knew it, I was taking her. Mrs. Devlin stepped back. ‘She’s yours now.’ I’ll never forget that.

‘She’s yours now, and you’re hers.’ And she left me to rock Mia to sleep.” Lulu sniffled. “Wine’s making me sloppy.”

Touched, Mac leaned over, closed a hand over hers. “Me, too.”

Sheriff Zachariah Todd emptied the dishwasher— one of the few tasks he was allowed to attempt in his own kitchen. “Okay, let me see if I got this straight. Mia told Sam what happened out on the coast road this morning. Ripley, who didn’t know what happened, found Sam up at Mia’s house and he told her, Ripley—but she promised she wouldn’t tell Mia he’d been there, so she told Mia—when Mia was going to tell her—Jesus—about what happened; that she, and that would be Ripley, ran into Sam on the road when he was cleansing the area.”

“You’re doing great,” Nell encouraged as Zack took a breath and she checked on the progress of her lasagna.

“Don’t throw me off the track. Then Mac told Sam what Ripley had told Mia while Mia was telling you what happened this morning. Then Ripley told you the rest of it, which you told me. For reasons that escape me.”

“Because I love you, Zack.”

“Right.” He pressed a fingertip dead center of his forehead. “I think I’ll just keep my mouth shut altogether. No way to wedge my foot in there that way.”

“Never a bad choice.” She heard Lucy’s sudden and joyful barking. “Someone’s here. You go, take the tray on the third shelf. I’m experimenting with canapés for the Rodgers’s wedding I’m catering next month. Put them up where Lucy can’t get them,” she called as he started out, then glanced down at Diego. “Men and dogs,” she said, and clucked her tongue. “You have to watch them every minute.”

And because she did, Nell took the time to shift all the utensils Zack had put away into their proper slots before she grabbed a bottle of wine and went out to greet her guests. Mac and Ripley had brought the puppy along, which sent Lucy into spasms of delight and terror, and had a miffed Diego stalking upstairs to sulk.

Mia arrived with a bouquet of freshly clipped daffodils, and helped herself relax by sitting on the floor playing tug-the-rope with Mulder.

“I think of getting a dog now and then.” She laughed as Mulder lost his toothy grip on the rope and went tumbling ears over tail. “Then I think about my gardens.” She snatched the puppy up, holding him high.

“You’d just love digging up all my flowers, wouldn’t you?”

“Not to mention chewing on your shoes,” Ripley said sourly. “Of course, you’ve got a hundred pair to spare.”

“Shoes are a form of self-expression.”

“Shoes are to walk in.”

Mia drew the puppy down, rubbed noses. “What does she know?”

That’s how Sam saw her when he came to the door, sitting on the floor, laughing while a fat yellow puppy licked her cheeks. His gut clenched, and his throat snapped shut. She looked so carelessly happy with her skirts spread out on the rug, her hair tumbling down her back, and her eyes bright with pleasure.

There, in that outrageously beautiful woman, was the shimmer of the girl he’d left behind. Then Lucy barked, Mulder leaped, and Mia stopped laughing as her gaze snapped to the doorway.

“Lucy!” Zack called to the dog, then grabbed her collar as he opened the screen door for Sam. “No jumping,” he ordered as Lucy’s muscles bunched for a joyful leap. “Either of you.” He said it under his breath. A blind man could have seen that hungry look on Sam’s face.

“She’s all right.” Sam skimmed a hand over Lucy’s head and she collapsed onto her back. He passed the wine he’d brought to Zack before crouching down to rub her exposed belly. The puppy gamboled over, wanting his share.

“What are you doing here?” Mia demanded.

Sam lifted his eyebrows at her tone, but before he could respond, Mac stepped in. “I asked him to come.” Mac nearly flinched at Mia’s quick, accusing stare. “We’re all part of this, and everyone here has something to contribute. We need to cooperate with each other, Mia.”

“You’re right, of course.” The carefree woman was gone. In her place was one with a cool voice and a polished smile. “So rude of me, Sam. I apologize. This has been our little club for some time now, and I wasn’t expecting a new member.”

“No problem.” He picked up the rope Mulder dropped hopefully at his feet.

“Dinner will just be a few more minutes.” Smoothly Nell moved into the tense air. “Can I get you a glass of wine, Sam?”

“Love one, thanks. Does your little club have any initiation rite I should know about?”

“Just the little business where we shave all the hair off your head and body.” Mia sipped her own wine.

“But that can wait until after dinner. I think I’ll wash up.”

Before she could get to her feet, Sam was on his, a hand held down to her. Whether it was a test or a peace offering, Mia blocked herself so that when she took his hand it was nothing more than palm meeting palm. “Thanks.”

She knew the house as well as she knew her own, but headed up the stairs rather than using the more convenient powder room on the first floor.

More distance, she thought. More solitude.

She slipped inside, shut the door. Leaned back against it. It was ridiculous. Absurd for the man to affect her the way he did. It was all right, or nearly so, when she was prepared, but when she saw him at those odd moments—those moments when too much of her was already open—he just filled her up. She wanted to blame him for it, but it was foolish, and foolhardy, to keep picking at an old wound. What was done was done.

She stepped to the sink, studied her face in the mirror. She looked tired, a little pale and drawn. Well, it had been a difficult day. And the shell, at least, was simple to mend. She washed her hands, then ran water in the sink. Bending, she scooped it, cool and fresh, onto her face. In the normal scheme of things, she enjoyed using cosmetics. The pencils and tubes and brushes were amusing, and there was something reassuringly female about using them. But for now, this was simpler, and certainly quicker.

She dabbed her face dry, weaving the glamour spell. Then she looked critically in the mirror again. Much better, she decided. She looked rested, with the subtle bloom of healthy color in her cheeks. More color, not quite so subtle, slicked her mouth.

[Dalyia]

Then with a sigh for her own vanity, she traced a fingertip over the curve of her eyelid, as a woman might use eyeshadow and a brush to define them. The contour deepened.

Satisfied, she gave herself another moment to smooth out her emotions. And went back down to join the others.

A close-knit group, Sam thought as he ate Nell Todd’s truly amazing lasagna. The body language, the looks, the half-finished thoughts one would complete for another all told him these were five people who’d bonded like glue.

By his time line, Nell had been on the island slightly less than a year, and Mac only since the past winter. Yet they’d been absorbed in a way that made them all very much a single unit. A common enemy was part of the answer. But he saw more here than what he perceived as a kind of wartime intimacy.

There was something in the way Mia warmed when she spoke to or listened to Mac, the amused affection on her face. It was love he saw there, not the sort that sprang from passion, but something deep and true.

He saw byplay like that all around the table.

Nell scooped up a second helping for Mac before he’d asked for one. Zack tore off a hunk of bread and passed it to Mia while he continued to hold a heated debate with his sister on the pitching depth of the Red Sox. Nell and Mia exchanged looks in an unspoken joke that had them both chuckling. And all of it, all the ease, made it clear to Sam that building a bridge over his years away would take more than time and proximity.

“I think my father and yours played in the same foursome for some charity golf tournament,” Mac commented. “Just last month, in Palm Springs, or Palm Beach. Or something with a Palm in it.”

“Really?” Sam had never been interested in his father’s pseudo charity events. And it had been years since he’d had to bow to the pressure of participating in any of them. “I met your parents at various functions in New York.”

“Yeah, same circles.”

“More or less,” Sam agreed. “I don’t recall meeting you at any of those various functions.”

Mac only grinned. “Well, there you are. So . . . do you play golf?”

Now, Sam smiled. “No. Do you?”

“Mac’s pretty much a spaz,” Ripley put in. “If he tried to tee off, he’d probably slice his big toe into the woods.”

“Sad, but true,” Mac agreed.

“Last week he tripped going down the deck steps. Six stitches.”

“The dog tripped me,” Mac said in his own defense. “And it was only four stitches.”

“Which you could’ve avoided if you’d come to me instead of going to the clinic.”

“She rags on me every time I get a bump or a bruise.”

“Which is daily. On our honeymoon—”

“We’re not getting into that.” The flush started creeping up Mac’s neck.

“When we were using taking a shower as an excuse to have some hot, steamy sex—”

“Cut it out.” Mac spread his hand over Ripley’s face and gave it a nudge. “And that towel bar was not properly installed.”

“He ripped it right out of the wall in the throes.” She batted her lashes at him. “My hero.”

“Anyway,” Mac said on a long breath. “Seeing as you’re in the hotel business, Sam, you might want to make sure your towel bars are secure.”

“I’ll make a note, particularly if the two of you decide to take a weekend at the Magick Inn.”

“Well, if Nell and Zack make a reservation,” Ripley continued, “you’d better check the stability of the bathroom sinks. They knocked the one upstairs out of alignment when—”

“Ripley!” Nell hissed it, horrified.

“Do you have to tell her everything?” Zack demanded.

“Not anymore.” Ignoring Ripley’s laughter, Nell pushed to her feet. “I’ll get dessert.”

“I had no idea bathrooms had become such erogenous zones,” Mia commented as she rose to clear her plate.

“I’ll be happy to show you mine,” Sam said, and was given a shrug as she strolled into the kitchen.

“She didn’t eat. She only pretended to.” Sam kept his voice low.

“She’s tense,” Mac added.

“There’s no point in my being here if it closes her off.”

“The world doesn’t revolve around you.” Ripley snagged her glass and drank.

“Rip.” Zack’s voice was a quiet warning. “Let’s just see how it goes from here.”

With a nod, Sam picked up his own plate. “She trusts you,” he said to Mac.

“Yes, she does.”

“Maybe that balances things out.”

Sam had nerves of his own when they settled back in the living room. What he was had never been an issue for him. It simply was. But neither was his gift something he discussed. He joined no coven. And though only four out of the six there were hereditary witches, it was very much a kind of coven.

“We all know the legend,” Mac began.

The historian, Sam thought. The scientist. The detail man with the facile mind.

“During the Salem witch trials, the three who were known as Fire, Earth, and Air conjured what became Three Sisters Island as a haven against persecution.”

“While innocents were hunted and murdered,” Ripley added.

The soldier. Sam idly stroked the cat, who had deigned to join him on the sofa. A woman with grit. The earth.

“They couldn’t have stopped it, or if they’d tried,” Zack said, “others might have died.”

And here, Sam decided, was reason and authority.

“Change one angle of destiny, change all.” Mac nodded, continued. “The one called Air fell in love, married a merchant who took her back to the mainland. Bore his children, kept his home. But he could never accept what she was. He abused her, and ultimately killed her.”

“She blamed herself, I think, for not being what he wanted. For not staying true to herself, and choosing poorly.”

Nell, the nurturer, Sam thought when she spoke. The cat stretched under his hand, as if agreeing. She was the air.

“She saved her children, sent them back to her sisters. But the circle was diminished. Weakened. And the horror of it, the fury of it,” Mac went on, “festered in the one known as Earth until she surrendered to the anger, the rage, and the need for revenge.”

“She was wrong,” Ripley said now. “I understand what she felt, why she felt it, but she was wrong. And she paid. Using her power to kill the one who’d killed her sister destroyed her, and came back threefold. She lost her husband, a man she loved; was never able to see her children again; and shattered what was left of the circle.”

“There was one left.” Mia’s voice was clear, her gaze level. “One left to hold it.”

Intellect, pride, and passion. Was it any wonder that she stirred him? Sam thought. She was the fire.

“Despair can crush even the strongest.” Nell laid a hand on Mia’s. “But even alone, even heartbroken, she wove a web of protection. Three hundred years strong.”

“She made certain her children were taken care of.” Mac thought of Lulu. “Which brings us to now.” He frowned into his coffee. “A still unbroken circle.”

“You’re worried I’ll fail when my time comes. Nell faced her demons, and Ripley hers.” In what seemed an idle gesture, Mia stroked Mulder with the side of her foot. “Of the three of us, my knowledge and practice of the Craft is the most extensive.”

“Agreed. But—”

She lifted a brow at Mac. “But?”

“I wonder if, on the other side of the scale, what you’ll have to deal with is more, well, insidious. Nell had Evan Remington, a man.”

“He was a piece of shit,” Ripley corrected.

“Be that as it may, he was human. She had to find the courage to face him, to defeat him and embrace her gift. I’m not saying any of that was a walk on the beach, but it was pretty tangible. If you’re following me.”

“A man with a knife.” Sam spoke for the first time since Mac had begun, and drew everyone’s attention.

“A sociopath, psychopath, whatever the term might be for that kind of evil, in the woods, in the dark of the moon. No, not a walk on the beach. It took great courage, deep faith, and a formidable power to do what Nell did. But it was an evil whose face she knew.”

“Exactly.” Mac beamed as if Sam were a prized student. “In Ripley’s case—”

“In Ripley’s case,” Ripley repeated, “I had to accept a power I’d rejected, and walk the line when part of me wanted to cross it.”

“Emotional turmoil,” Sam agreed. “It can affect the tone of power in the same way it can affect the tone of your voice, the tone of your actions. The gift doesn’t protect us from flaws, or mistakes. That kind of turmoil was tailored toward you, and Nell’s was turned toward her as a potent weapon. With—”

He broke off, glanced at Mac.

“No, keep going.” Mac waved a hand. “It’s good to hear it from someone else’s point of view.”

“All right. The force that was unleashed centuries ago used Remington as a conduit and fed itself into the reporter who followed Nell’s cross-country route to the Sisters.”

“You’ve kept up,” Mia said quietly.

“Yeah. I’ve kept up. Holding the line, power against power, without crossing that line isn’t a simple matter. It requires conviction, compassion, strength. Even so, in the end Ripley, like Nell, faced a man. Whatever was inside him, he was flesh and blood.”

“It looks like Sam and I have circled around to the same theory.”

“Then why the hell don’t you punch through to the point of it and stop circling?” Ripley complained.

“Okay.” Since Sam gestured the go-ahead, Mac took over. “What came at Mia today wasn’t flesh and blood, not a living thing, but a manifestation. That tells me a couple of things. Maybe, just maybe, because the circle’s intact, because twice now it’s been defeated, its power’s diminished. It can’t possess, but can only deceive.”

“Or it hordes its strength. Waiting for its time, and its place.”

“Yes.” Mac nodded at Sam. “Waiting for the right circumstance. There isn’t that much time—when you measure by three centuries—left on either side. It’s going to keep pushing, trying to weaken the circle, and Mia most specifically. Undermining the bedrock of your power. It’ll use your fears, doubts, any weaknesses that trickle through the chinks. Tailored to you,” he added with a nod to Sam. “That’s just exactly right. It’ll try to prey on you as it did on her three centuries ago. Through her loneliness and loss, her despair at the thought of living without the people she loved, and needed most.”

“I’m aware of that,” Mia acknowledged. “But I’m not lonely, and I’ve lost nothing. My circle holds.”

“Yes, but . . . I don’t believe the circle can be considered complete, and whole, until your step is taken.”

Since this was tricky ground, Mac took his time. “Until then, there’s a vulnerability, and that’s where the pressure will be the greatest. It only needed to break Nell, and it failed. To seduce Ripley, and it failed. With you . . .”

“It needs to cause my death,” Mia finished calmly. “Yes, I know. I’ve always known.”

When she started to leave, Nell held on to her.

“Don’t worry so, little sister.” Mia pressed her cheek to Nell’s hair. “I know how to protect myself.”

“I know. I just wish you’d stay. I know how stupid that sounds, but I wish you’d stay with one of us until this is really over.”

“I need my cliffs. I’ll be fine, I promise.” She gave Nell one last squeeze. “Blessed be.”

She’d lingered longer than the others, hoping to avoid any more conversation. But when she stepped outside, she saw Sam leaning against her car.

“I walked over. How about a lift back?”

“It’s a pleasant night for a short walk.”

“Give me a lift, Mia.” He took her wrist as she started to move past him. “I want to talk to you, for a minute anyway. Alone.”

“I suppose I owe you a favor.”

“Do you?”

She circled the car, slipped in behind the wheel. She waited until she’d started the car. “For cleaning up my mess on the coast road this morning,” she said as she eased into a U-turn. “Ripley told me she ran into you. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Well, that didn’t hurt too much. Now, what did you want to talk to me about?”

“I wondered about you and Mac. There’s something there.”

“Really?” Deliberately she took her attention away from the road long enough to bat her lashes. “Do you think I’m trying to tempt my sister’s husband into a wild, illicit affair?”

“If you were, he’d already be there.”

She laughed. “What a lovely compliment, even if you’re wrong. He’s sweetly, madly in love with his wife. But you’re right about one thing, there is something between us. You’ve always been good at picking up atmosphere and emotion.”

“What is it?”

“We’re cousins.”

“Cousins?”

“It happens that the granddaughter of the first sister married a MacAllister—Mac’s mother’s side of the family.”

“Ah.” Sam did his best to stretch out his legs in the little car. “So he’s of the blood. That explains a number of things. I felt a connection the minute I met him, but couldn’t pin him down. Just as I felt one for Nell, even when she wanted to drop me into a dark pit and leave me there to rot. I like your friends.”

“Well, I’m so relieved.”

“Don’t snipe at me, Mia. I meant it.”

[Dalyia]

Because she knew it was true, she sighed. “I’m tired. It always make me cross.”

“They’re worried about you. How you’ll handle things.”

“I know. I’m sorry about it.”

“I’m not worried.” He paused when she pulled up in front of the cottage. “I’ve never known anyone, witch or woman, more vital than you. You won’t give in.”

“No, I won’t. But I won’t say I don’t appreciate the confidence, particularly after a long, difficult day. Good night, Sam.”

“Come inside.”

“No.”

“Come inside, Mia.” He slipped a hand through her hair to rub the back of her neck. “And be with me.”

“I’d like to be with someone tonight,” she continued, “to be comforted and soothed. To be touched and taken. So I won’t.”

“Why?”

“Because it wouldn’t make me happy. Good night, Sam.”

He could have pressed, they both knew it. But some of her glamour had slipped, and he saw fatigue breaking through to haunt her face. “Good night.”

He climbed out, watched her drive away. And kept her in his mind until he knew she was safely inside the house on the cliffs.

Eight

I t was all a matter of strategy. In business, Sam thought. In relationships. And sometimes in just surviving the day. He checked the progress on the rehab and was pleased that the work was proceeding on schedule.

He knew something about building and design. There had been a time, years before, when he’d considered breaking with Logan Enterprises and building his own hotel. He’d taken some extra college courses in architecture and design and had even spent a summer working as a laborer on a construction crew.

That had given him some practical knowledge, an elementary skill, and a healthy respect for manual labor.

But his plans to build his own had faded as every design he attempted or imagined turned into a mirror image of the Magick Inn.

Why replicate what already was?

Once he’d realized he wanted the hotel, the rest was a matter of patience, canniness, and careful strategy. It had been important not to let his father know that the Magick Inn was the single family asset he coveted.

It would have come to Sam through inheritance in any case, but had Thaddeus Logan realized it had become a kind of Holy Grail to his son, he would have felt obliged to nudge it out of reach, thereby pressuring his son and heir to take more personal interest in other areas of the family empire. The carrot would have dangled at the end of a very long, very thorny stick during his father’s lifetime. It was, Sam knew, how his father operated. He was not a man who rewarded; he was one who withheld. A philosophy that garnered results and never concerned itself with affection. Despite that, Sam hadn’t been willing to perch like a vulture on a tree branch, waiting for his own father to die before he claimed what he wanted.

For nearly six years, he had held his desire for the hotel close to the vest. He’d worked, he’d learned, and whenever he’d managed to carve out room, he had implemented some of his own ideas, establishing a few profitable offshoots to Logan Enterprises.

In the end it had come down to deflecting his father’s attention, waiting him out, then broaching the deal at the right moment and meeting the cost.

Historically, the Logans were staunch believers in the adage that nothing comes free—unless, Sam thought, it was their own trust funds. So he had paid fair market value for his father’s share of the hotel. Sam didn’t count the cost, not when he had what he wanted.

He was going to try not to count the cost with Mia.

He intended to be patient—within reason. He would, of course, be canny. But he had yet, he was forced to admit, to outline a clear-cut strategy.

His direct approach—Honey, I’m home!—hadn’t worked. And why he’d been brainless enough to think it would was currently beyond him. Let’s kiss and make up hadn’t done much better. She wasn’t freezing him out at every opportunity, but neither was she softening. He wanted her safe. He wanted his island secure. And he wanted her back. The idea that he might not be able to have all three didn’t sit well with him. But the fact was that the responsibility of cleaning up a disaster three hundred years in the making was in their laps. And it couldn’t be ignored.

Mac hadn’t mentioned his theory in the meeting at the Todds’ the other night. But Sam imagined he had discussed it—or would—with Mia in private. In the end, rejecting him might be her answer. Might be the answer.

But going down without a fight went against nature.

So . . . strategy, he thought, and scanned the parlor area of the currently empty suite where the walls had been newly papered in pale green moiré silk and the woodwork sanded down to its natural oak and varnished golden.

Thinking, he wandered through the bedroom and to a doorway where a second bedroom had been sacrificed to expand the bath and the master closet space. The fixtures had yet to be installed, but he’d selected the generous jet tub himself, the ripple glass on the multi-head shower unit, the curving ribbon of counters.

He’d used warm colors, a lot of polished granite and copper. Luxurious amenities in old-fashioned apothecary jars.

A blend of tradition, comfort, and efficiency.

Just the sort of thing, he mused, that appealed to Mia. Business, steady profit, and exquisite service. He smiled to himself as he took his cell phone out of his pocket. Then just as quickly replaced it. A personal call wasn’t the way to conduct some business discussions.

He headed down to his office to tell his assistant to get Ms. Devlin on the phone.

H e puzzled her. The boy she’d thought she knew so well had become a man full of unexpected turns and missing pieces. A business dinner? Mia mused when she hung up the phone. At her convenience. She frowned at the receiver she’d just replaced. And he’d sounded as if he meant it. Very cool, very professional.

A business meeting, over dinner at the hotel, to discuss a proposal he hoped would be of benefit to both of their establishments.

Just what did the man have up his sleeve?

Sheer curiosity had pushed her to agree to the meeting, though she was wily enough not to be available the same night. She graciously agreed to rearrange her schedule to fit him in the following evening. It wouldn’t hurt to see if there was anything she should be ready for. She took a ball of crystal from her shelf and set it at the center of her desk.

With her hands cupped around it, she focused her mind, gathered her power. The glass began to warm. Mists swam inside it, shimmering with a light that seemed to come from deep within the globe. Visions swirled into the mists, and into her eyes.

She saw herself as she had been, young—so young—lying naked in the cave, wrapped only in Sam’s arms.

“Not yesterday,” she whispered. “But tomorrow. Clear the future from the past so I can see what may be.”

Her garden, lush with summer, under a bright white moon. As she looked, the air in her office was perfumed with the vanilla scent of heliotrope, the spice of dianthus. She wore white, a long flow of it, to echo the moon.

He stood with her in that ocean of flowers and held out a hand. In his palm he held a star, a slice of colored light that beat like a pulse.

He was smiling when he tossed it high, when a shower of light and color exploded over their heads. As it streamed down, she felt the thrill, the utter joy that the woman inside that ball of glass felt. It swelled inside her own heart, like a song.

And in a flash, she was alone on the cliffs while a storm screamed. Lightning struck around her, burning arrows of it. Her island was enveloped by a fetid fog. The chill of it reached out to where she stood in her quiet office and iced her bones.

Out of the dark, the black wolf leaped. His jaws were still snapping at her throat as they fell toward the raging sea.

“Enough.” She passed a hand over the globe, and it was only a pretty glass ball.

She replaced it, and sat. Her hands were steady, her breathing even. She had always known that looking into what might come could mean seeing her own death. Or worse, the death of a loved one. It was the price that power demanded. The Craft didn’t ask for blood, but still it squeezed the heart to a throbbing bruise at times.

So, she thought, which would it be for her? Love or death? Or, by taking the first, would she ensure the second?

She would see. She’d learned much in thirty years as a witch, Mia thought as she turned back to her computer, back to the work of the day. And one thing she knew. You did what you could to protect, to respect, taking the joys and the sorrows. Then, in the end, you accepted your destiny.

“I thought you said it wasn’t a date.”

Mia secured the back of her earring. “It’s not a date. It’s a business dinner.”

Lulu sniffed. Loudly. “If it’s a business dinner what’re you doing wearing that dress?”

Mia picked up her second earring, let it dangle in her fingers a moment. “Because I like this dress.”

She’d known it was a mistake to bring the change of clothes to work rather than going home. But this saved time, and energy. Besides there was nothing wrong with the little, very little, black dress.

“Woman puts on a dress like that because she wants a man to think about what’s under it.”

Mia merely fluttered her lashes. “Do tell.”

“And don’t you get smart with me. I can still give you a good whap when you need one.”

“Lu, I’m not ten anymore.”

“If you ask me, you’re showing less sense than you had when you were.”

A long-suffering sigh wouldn’t work. Pointing out that she hadn’t asked would only lead to an argument. Since it was impossible to ignore the scowling woman jammed in the bathroom with her, Mia tried another angle.

She turned. “I’ve finished my homework and cleaned my room. Please can I go out and play?”

Lulu’s lips twitched, but she managed to get them back into a thin, flat line quickly enough. “Never had to nag you to clean your room. I used to worry because you were too damn neat for a kid.”

“You don’t have to nag me about this either, because I know how to handle Sam Logan.”

“You figure squeezing yourself into that dress and showing half your boobs is handling him?”

Mia glanced down. Her boobs, in her opinion, were nicely, even elegantly, displayed. As were her legs, clear up to mid-thigh. “Oh, yes, indeed.”

“Are you wearing underwear?”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Mia yanked the black jacket off the padded hanger.

“I asked you a question.”

Searching for patience, Mia put on the jacket. Its hem grazed an inch above the bottom of the skirt, turning the sexy little dress into a sexy little suit. “I find that an odd question coming from a former flower child. You probably didn’t even own any underwear from1963 to1972 .”

“Did so. I had a very pretty pair of tie-dyed panties for special occasions.”

Undone, Mia leaned back on the seat and chuckled. “Oh, Lu. What an image that creates in my feverish little brain. Just what sort of special occasion called for tie-dyed panties?”

“Don’t change the subject, and answer the question.”

“Well, I don’t own anything quite that festive, but I’m wearing underwear—after a fashion. So if I’m in an accident, I’m safe.”

“I’m not worried about an accident. I’m worried about on purpose.”

Straightening, Mia leaned down, cupped Lulu’s homely face in her hands. She hadn’t had to search for patience after all, she realized. She’d only had to remember love.

“You don’t have to worry at all. I promise.”

“My job is to worry,” Lulu muttered.

“Then take a break. I’m going to have a lovely dinner, find out just what business it is Sam’s cooking up, and enjoy the side benefit of driving him crazy.”

“You’ve still got a thing for him.”

“I never had a thing for him. I loved him.”

Lulu’s shoulders drooped. “Oh, honey.” She lifted a hand, fussed with Mia’s hair. “I wish he’d stayed in goddamn New York City.”

“Well, he didn’t. I don’t know if what I’m feeling now is just left over from what I felt then, or if it’s because of now, or all the years between. Shouldn’t I find out?”

“Being you, you have to. But I wish you’d kick his ass first.”

Mia turned, slipped on a hammered-gold necklace that dripped a slim column of pearls between her breasts. “If this dress doesn’t kick his ass, I don’t know what will.”

Lulu curled her lip, angled her head. “Maybe you’re not so stupid.”

“I learned from the best.” Mia colored her lips in murderous red, shook back her wild cloud of hair,

[Dalyia]

turned. “So, how do I look?”

“Like a man-eater.”

“Perfect.”

Mia thought she timed it perfectly as well. At precisely seven, she strolled into the lobby of the Magick Inn. The young desk clerk glanced over, goggled, then dropped the sheaf of papers in his hand. Pleased, she shot him a killer smile, then breezed into Sorcery, the hotel’s main dining room. There was a moment of surprise as she scanned the room and saw the changes. Sam had been busy, she realized, and felt an unwilling tug of pride.

The standard white tablecloths had been replaced by rich midnight-blue ones, the china on them a moon-bright contrast. The old clear glass vases had been removed, and now brass and copper pots rioting with white lilies formed ribbons of glint and fragrance. The crystal glassware had a heavy, almost medieval look.

Each table was graced with a small copper cauldron. Candlelight flickered through cutouts in the shapes of stars and crescent moons.

For the first time in her memory, the room reflected, and honored, its name. Impressed, approving, she stepped in. And experienced a fast, hard jolt.

There on the wall was a life-size painting of three women. The three sisters, backed by the forest and the night sky, looked down at her from a frame of ornate antique gold. They were robed in white, and the folds of those robes, the tendrils of their hair, seemed to move in an unseen wind. She saw Nell’s blue eyes, Ripley’s green ones. And her own face.

“Like it?” Sam said from behind her.

She swallowed so that her voice would be clear. “It’s stunning.”

“I had it commissioned nearly a year ago. It just arrived today.”

“It’s beautiful work. The models . . .”

“There were no models. The artist worked from my descriptions. From my dreams.”

“I see.” She turned to face him. “He or she is very talented.”

“She. A Wiccan artist living in SoHo. I think she captured . . .” He trailed off as he shifted his gaze from the portrait to Mia. Every thought in his head scattered in pure, primal lust. “You look amazing.”

“Thank you. I like, very much, what you’ve done with the restaurant.”

“It’s a start.” He started to take her arm, then realized his palms had gone damp. “I’m having new lighting designed. Something in brass, more lanternlike. And I want—well, why don’t we sit before I bore you with all my plans.”

“On the contrary.” But she let him guide her to an intimate corner booth where, she noted, a bottle of champagne was already chilling.

She slid in, then deliberately slipped out of her jacket. She watched his eyes blur, but to his credit, his gaze stayed primarily on her face. “Warm in here,” she said, then nodded to the waiter when he poured her champagne. “What are we drinking to?”

Sam sat, picked up his own glass. “One question before we get to that. Are you trying to kill me?”

“No. Just kick your ass.”

“Done. I don’t think a woman’s made my hands sweat since, well, since you. Now if I can just get some of the blood back into my head.” When she laughed, he tapped his glass to hers. “To mutual business.”

“Do we have any?”

“That’s what this is about. First, regarding dinner. I pre-ordered. I think I remember your taste. If that doesn’t suit you, I’ll get you a menu.”

Smooth, she thought. Very smooth. The man had learned how and when to polish over all those dangerous edges. When it suited him.

“I don’t mind the occasional surprise.” She sat back, let her gaze drift around the room. “Business is good.”

“It is. And I intend for it to get better. The first-floor renovations should be complete in another two weeks. The new presidential suite rocks.”

“So I hear. Your contractor is my contractor.”

“So I hear. When do you plan to start your expansion?”

“Soon.” She glanced at the variety of appetizers placed on the table by silent waiters. She sampled a bit of lobster paté.

“I hope to keep the inconvenience to my customers at a minimum. Still, during the main part of the work, I imagine you’ll pick up some of my lunch crowd.” She paused for a beat. “Temporarily.”

“Improvements to your business only benefit mine, and vice versa.”

“I can agree to that.”

“Why not exploit it? I want to stock some local-interest books, maybe some current bestsellers, in the luxury suites. A discreet card or bookmark could advertise your store.”

“And?” She waited for the catch.

“You get a lot of day-trippers. Again, using the local-interest angle, what if they bought a particular book you’ve selected—a book on the island’s history, whatever. A purchase of that book gives them a chance to win a free weekend’s stay at the hotel. They fill out a form with their name and address, we pull a ticket once a month during the season, and somebody gets lucky.”

“And we have all those names on our mailing list.”

He topped off their champagne. “I knew you’d follow me. You sell books, I get a few more tourists into the hotel, and we both add to our potential customer base. Vacations,” he continued, selecting a delicate crab puff. “Hotels, beach reading. Then there’s business travel. Same deal. I’m working on pulling in more conventions. I get them in and part of the welcome package is a discount coupon for Café Book, which gets them into your place across the street.”

“Which, if they fill out the prize form, gets them back into your place on a weekend vacation.”

“Bull’s-eye.”

She considered as fresh field-greens salads were served. “The cost to each of us is negligible. Some paperwork. It’s simple enough. In fact, much too simple to warrant a business dinner to discuss it.”

“There’s more. I’ve noticed you don’t, as a rule, do author events.”

“One or two a year, local interest again.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Sisters and Café Book are well off the beaten path for book tours and standard book signings. Publishers don’t send authors to remote islands off the New England coast, and most authors aren’t going to pay to come here and work.”

“We can change that.”

He had her interest now. She accepted the bread he’d buttered for her, unaware that he’d been nudging food on her since she’d sat down. “Can we?”

“I made a number of contacts in New York. I’ve still got some buttons to push, but I’m working on convincing a few key people that sending a touring author to Three Sisters would be well worth the time and money. Particularly since the Magick Inn will offer a generous corporate rate and first-class accommodations. Then there’s the convenience of having a classy independent bookstore right across the street. What you have to do is put together a proposal detailing just how Café Book would host an author, how you’d pull in the warm bodies and have books moving out the door. We pull it off once, just once, and others will be hopping on the ferry.”

She felt the quick twist of excitement at the idea, but weighed it from all angles. “Filling a room a few times a year at a corporate rate will hardly made a difference to you.”

“Maybe I’m just trying to help my neighbor. So to speak.”

“Then you should know your neighbor isn’t gullible or naive.”

“No, she’s just the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”

“Thank you. Now. What’s the point in these ideas for the hotel?”

“Okay, so much for charm.” He leaned toward her. “There are a lot of publishers with a lot of authors with a lot of books to hype. That’s one. Two, publishers have sales conferences. If I snag the interest of one publisher because of a successful author event, it’s going to add to the weight I’m putting on to cop a major conference. I get that, I’m going to get in a lot of repeat business.” He lifted his water glass. “So will you. If you can handle an author event.”

“I know how to host a signing.” She ate without thinking because her mind was already on the details. “If you can push those buttons for, say, July or August, even into September the first time around, I’ll get plenty of warm bodies. Give me a novel, a mystery, a romance, a thriller, and we’ll sell a hundred minimum on the event day, and half that many during the follow-up week.”

“Write the proposal.”

“You’ll have it tomorrow, by the close of the workday.”

“Good.” He ate some salad. “How would you like John Grisham?”

Enjoying herself, enjoying him, she picked up her glass again. “Don’t toy with me, smart guy. He doesn’t tour, his books come out in February, not the summer. And even you aren’t that good.”

“Okay, just testing. How about Caroline Trump?”

Mia’s lips pursed. “She’s very good. I’ve read her first three books. Solid romantic thrillers. Her publisher’s been building her well, and they’re moving her into hardcover this summer. A July release,”

she considered, studying Sam’s face. “Can you get me Caroline Trump?”

“Get me the proposal.”

She sat back again. “I misjudged you. I imagined you used business as an excuse to get me in here. I figured you’d have some little scheme to spring off a seduction attempt, but nothing really viable.”

“If I hadn’t had something viable, I’d have settled for a scheme to get you here.” He brushed his fingers over the back of her hand. “Even if it only meant I could look at you for an hour.”

“And I thought,” she continued, “that sometime during the conversation you’d remind me that you had a number of rooms upstairs, and why didn’t we make use of one.”

“I thought about it.” He remembered what she’d said to him as they’d sat in her car outside of the yellow cottage. “But it wouldn’t make you happy.”

Her breath caught for an instant. “Oh, I wish I knew if that was sincere, or just fucking clever.”

“Mia—”

“No. I don’t know what’s between us. I can’t see it, and I’ve tried to. Why is it that, even knowing better, we can fool ourselves into believing we’d be all right if we just knew what happens next?”

“I don’t know. I can’t see it either.” When she looked at him, he nearly sighed. “I was never as good as you at clearing away the now to see the what-ifs, but I had to try.”

She looked to the portrait of the sisters. “The only thing set in stone is yesterday. I can promise you I have no intention of letting what they began be destroyed. This is my home. Everything that matters to me is on this island. I’m more than I was when you left, less than I will be when I’m done. That, I do know.”

“Do you think being with me diminishes that?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t be sitting here now.” Her lips curved as their entrées were served. “I was going to sleep with you.”

“Christ.” He pounded a fist on his heart. “Medic.”

Her laugh was low and intimate. “I imagine, before we’re done, I will. But since we’re being so friendly, I’ll tell you frankly, I want you to suffer first.”

“Believe me,” he said with feeling, and reached for his water glass. “Let’s go back to business before I whimper and lose the respect of my restaurant staff.”

“All right, tell me about your other plans for the hotel.”

“I want it to matter. I want people who stay here to take away an experience. I spent six months in Europe a few years ago, touring and studying and dissecting the smaller hotels. It’s about service first, but overall, it’s about the details. Color schemes, the thread count on the sheets. Can you reach the phone without getting out of bed? Can I get a damn sandwich at two in the morning, or get this spot cleaned off my tie before my afternoon meeting?”

“How thick are the towels,” Mia commented. “How firm is the mattress.”

“And so on. In-room faxes and Internet access for the business traveler. Complimentary champagne and roses for the honeymooners. A staff that clues in and greets guests by name. And fresh flowers, fresh linens, fresh fruit. I’m going to hire a maître d’etage to butler the luxury suites.”

“Well, well.”

“And every guest, on arrival, will have an amenity delivered. From a fruit plate and sparkling water to champagne and caviar, depending on the price level of the room. Every room will be rehabbed before we’re done, and every one will be personalized and unique. I’m naming them, so guests will stay in the Rose Room or the Trinity Suite, and so forth.”

“That’s a nice touch,” she told him. “More personal.”

“Exactly. We already have a data bank, but we’ll put it to better use for repeat guests. That way we can do our best to put them back in a favorite room. We’ll bump up the level of their amenities with recurring visits, maintain a file on their preferences. And in the health club . . .” He trailed off. “What?”

“Nothing.” But she couldn’t help smiling at him. “Go on.”

“No.” He laughed a little. “I get caught up.”

“You know what you want, and how you intend to go about it. It’s very attractive.”

“It took me a long time to get there. You always knew.”

“Maybe I did. But wants and intentions change.”

“And sometimes they circle back around.”

He laid his hand on hers, and then she gently slid hers free. “And sometimes they just change.”

He went back to work after she’d left the restaurant. But he couldn’t concentrate. He went home, but he couldn’t settle.

Being with her was both torture and pleasure. Watching the expressions cross her face when she became interested enough not to close herself off from him, pure fascination. Wanting her was like a drug in his bloodstream.

In the end, he changed and walked into the dark woods. He went unerringly to the circle where he could feel the shimmer of her magic rise up and merge with Nell’s, with Ripley’s. Preparing himself, he stepped into its center, and let their power, and his own, wash over him like water.

“What is mine, I add to yours. With power shared, the link endures.” The light grew, spreading around the ring as strong as the sun. “To win your heart, I’ll face the fire, and all that the fates conspire. By earth and air, by fire and water, I will stand by the sisters’ daughter. Yet I wait for her to come to me, that we might make our destiny.”

He breathed deep, spread his arms. “Tonight while the moonlight streams, she is safe within her dreams. Here to me I call out of the night that which feeds on pain and blight. Know I join the sisters three and dare to show yourself to me.”

The earth trembled and the wind whipped. But the fire that ringed the circle ran straight and true toward the night sky.

And outside the circle, a dark mist fed along the ground, and coalesced into a wolf with a pentagram-shaped scar on its snout.

So, Sam thought, let’s understand each other.

“To him who seeks her life to take, within this ring this vow I make. By all the power that lives in me, from your hand she will be free. I will crush you into dust by all means fair or foul or just.”

Sam watched while the wolf paced around the circle, snarling.

“Do you think I fear you? You’re nothing but smoke and stink.”

Sam waved a hand, and the light around the circle lowered. In challenge, he stepped clear of the protection. “Power to power,” he murmured while the air outside the circle swirled filthy and foul. Sam watched the wolf gather, the ripple and bunch of muscle. It leaped for his throat. The weight of it was a shock, as was the quick, sharp pain in his shoulder where claws dug. Using both muscle and magic, he flung the wolf aside, then yanked the ritual knife out of his belt. “Let’s finish it,” he said between his teeth.

[Dalyia]

This time when the wolf charged, he pivoted and raked the knife over its side. There was a sound, more scream than howl. Black blood dripped onto the ground, sizzling into it like hot oil. And wolf and mist vanished.

Sam studied the fresh scar on the earth, then the blackened tip of his blade. Absently, he ran a hand over his shoulder where his shirt and flesh had been ripped.

So, they’d both bled. But only one had screamed and fled. “Round one goes to me,” he murmured, then prepared to cleanse the ground.

Nine

B y ten the next morning, Mia was already polishing up her proposal for an author event. She’d worked off considerable sexual frustration the night before by diving straight into the project and sticking with it until after midnight.

Then she’d sprinkled ginger and marigold over the rough draft for success in business ventures. With rosemary under her pillow to aid in a restful sleep, she’d tuned out the nagging need. She had always been good at channeling her energies, at focusing them on the task that needed attention. After her initial mourning period for Sam, that strength of will had gotten her through college, into business. Into life.

It had, for years, kept her moving forward with matters both practical and pleasurable when she was fully aware that the web of protection around her home was thinning. Yet despite that will she’d dreamed. Of Sam, and of being with him then. Of being with him now. The physical ache of it had her tossing until she was tangled in the sheets. She dreamed of the marked wolf, stalking through the woods. Howling from its perch on her cliffs. And once she’d heard it scream, in pain and rage. And in sleep, she called Sam’s name like a chant. Still, she had slept, and she woke to a brilliant sunrise that promised a perfect day. She tended her flowers first while the sky shimmered with the reds and golds of dawn. She paid her respects to the elements that gave her the beauty of her gardens and the gift of her power. She brewed a cup of mint tea, for money and luck, and drank it while standing on her cliffs with the sea raging against the rocks below.

She felt closest to her ancestor there, and could always sense the iron core of strength as well as the bitter, rending loneliness.

Sometimes, when she’d been very young, she’d stood here looking out to sea and hoping to see the sleek head of a silkie bobbing in the waves. Once, she’d believed in happily-ever-after and had woven the tale in her head of how the one who was called Fire’s lover had come back for her and how their spirits had found each other. Loved each other. Ever and always.

She no longer believed that, and was sorry for it. But she’d learned, and learned well, that there were some losses that sliced you to bits, shattered the spirit into dust. And still you went on, you remade yourself, mended your spirit. You lived. If not happily ever after, then contentedly enough. It had been on those cliffs that she had sworn an oath to protect what had been entrusted to her. She had been eight, full of pride in what she was. And every year since, on the nights of the summer and winter solstices, she stood on those cliffs and renewed that vow.

But this morning, Mia stood on the cliffs and simply gave thanks for the beauty of the day, then went in to dress for work.

She didn’t shudder when she drove the curves of the cliff road. But she watched. At her desk, she read over her proposal, searching for mistakes, any detail she might have overlooked. Her brow furrowed at the knock on her door. Though she ignored it, deliberately, Ripley strode in.

“I’m busy. Come back later.”

“Something’s up.” Never one to stand on ceremony, or to be put off by a less than warm welcome, Ripley came in, dropped into a chair.

That annoyed Mia enough to have her looking up. She saw Nell in the doorway.

“Nell. Isn’t it your day off?”

“Do you think I’d’ve dragged her in here on her day off,” Ripley said before Nell could answer, “if it wasn’t important?”

“All right.” With sincere regret, Mia set her work aside. “Come in, close the door. Did you have a vision?”

Ripley grimaced. “I try not to, and no, this has nothing to do with woo-woo stuff. Not directly, anyway. I heard Mac talking on the phone this morning, trying not to let me hear him talking on the phone.”

“Ripley, I really can’t meddle in your domestic disputes during working hours.”

“He was talking to Sam. Well, that woke you up,” she commented.

“It’s hardly surprising that they’d have a conversation.” Mia picked up her proposal, frowned at the bullet points, then gave up and set it down again. “All right. What were they talking about?”

“I don’t know exactly, but something. Mac was really interested. He even walked outside with the phone, casual-like. But I know it was because he didn’t want me to hear him.”

“How do you know it was Sam?”

“Because I heard him say, ‘I’ll come by the cottage this morning.’ ”

“Well, why . . . can’t you just get to the point?”

“I’m getting to it. So he scoots me out to work, trying not to make it obvious he’s railroading me along.

Kiss, kiss, pat, pat. Shove, shove. But I go, because I’m thinking I’ll just run by the cottage myself once I’m on patrol. But first I check in at the station house, and Zack’s on the phone. And he stops talking in the middle of a sentence when I walk in, then says hello to me, using my name really definitely.”

Her scowl deepened at the memory. “So I know he’s talking to either Mac or Sam. Then he starts giving me all this grunt work to do, crap jobs that’ll keep me tied to the station house for two or three hours. Says he’s got to do stuff. I wait until I’m sure he’s gone, then I drive by the cottage and what do you think I see?”

“I hope,” Mia said, “you’re about to tell me and put an end to this play-by-play.”

“The patrol car and Mac’s Rover,” Ripley announced. “I grabbed Nell, and now I’m grabbing you, because I’m telling you, they’re not playing poker or watching dirty movies in there.”

“No, they’re putting something together without us,” Mia agreed. “Too manly for the little women.”

“If they are,” Nell said, “Zack’s going to be very sorry.”

“Let’s just go find out, shall we?” Mia yanked her car keys out of her desk. “I’ll tell Lulu I’ve got to go out, and I’ll be right behind you.”

M ac hunkered down on the ground, ran his portable scanner. “Positive energy all the way,” he muttered. “Any negativity has been thoroughly cleansed. Next time call me first. I could really use a sample.”

“It was a little late for science experiments,” Sam told him.

“Never too late for science. Can you sketch the manifestation?”

“I can’t sketch a stick figure. It was the same image Mia described. The black wolf, massive size, with the mark of the pentagram.”

“It was smart to brand him when they had him down on the beach last winter.” Mac sat back on his haunches. “Makes ID simple—and it’s diminished his power.”

Sam rolled his shoulders. “Sure as hell wasn’t any pussycat last night.”

“He sucked the extra punch out of something, probably you. Bet you were pissed, huh?”

“The fucker tried to drive Mia off a cliff. What do you think?”

“I think the emotional turmoil we discussed the other night is a primary element of the equation. If you’d—”

“I think,” Zack interrupted, “Sam should get that shoulder looked at. Then we should stop jerking off with theories and go after this bastard. If it can hurt Sam, it can hurt somebody else. I’m not having it run loose on my island.”

“You’re not going to be able to track it down and shoot it like a rabid dog,” Mac told him.

“I can sure as hell try.”

“It won’t go after anyone who’s not connected.” Sam frowned at the unscarred ground. He’d spent most of the night thinking it through. “Fact is, I don’t think it can.”

“No, exactly.” Mac straightened. “This entity needs to feed off the power and the emotions of those of us who are tied to the original circle.”

“A lot of islanders have ties to the original circle, however diluted,” Zack pointed out.

“Yes, but it doesn’t want them. Or need them.”

“He’s right,” Sam told Zack. “It has only one focus, one purpose now, and it can’t waste time or energy by scattering it. Its magic is limited, but it’s canny. It fed on Ripley’s emotions before. This time it fed on mine. It won’t happen again.”

“Oh, yeah, you’ve always been a real even-tempered sort,” Zack muttered. “You wanted it to go for you.”

“It worked,” Sam pointed out. “The thing is, I didn’t hurt it that bad. It should’ve come at me again. Another charge and I could’ve gotten it into the circle. I could’ve held it there.”

“It’s not for you,” Mac said simply.

“Fuck that. I’m not standing back while it waits for a chance to go for Mia’s throat. That’s what it wants, that’s what I felt from it. It’ll have to get through me first, and that’s not going to happen. She can make whatever the hell choice she’s going to make, but in the meantime, I’m going to rip its goddamn heart out.”

“See,” Zack said after a beat. “Real even-tempered.”

“Kiss ass.”

“Okay, okay.” Mac stepped between them, patted the tensed shoulders of each man for peace. “Let’s just keep our heads.”

“Isn’t this sweet?” Mia’s voice dripped honey. “The boys are out playing in the woods.”

“Shit,” Zack muttered after one look at his wife’s angry eyes. “Busted.”

Ripley hooked her thumbs in her belt, tapped her fingers on her pockets, and strode forward. And got up in Mac’s face. “Lucy, you got some ’spaining to do.”

“No point in hassling them. I asked them to come.”

“Oh, we’ll get to you,” Ripley promised Sam, “but there’s a natural pecking order here.”

Mia stepped forward, and felt the ripples of power. “What happened here?”

“You might as well spill it,” Zack advised Sam. “Take my word for it. I’ve dealt with these three more than you have.”

“Let’s go inside and—”

Mia simply slapped a hand on Sam’s chest before he could move past her. “What happened here?” she repeated.

“I took a walk in the woods.”

Her gaze shifted, rested briefly on the ground. “You used the circle.”

“It was there.”

Part of her resented that he’d been able to use what was hers, what belonged to the three. It tightened the connection, made his link to her—to Nell and Ripley—unarguable. “All right,” she said calmly enough. “What happened?”

“I ran into your demon wolf from hell.”

“You—” She held up a hand, more to stop herself than to keep Sam silent. Because her first reaction was gut-wrenching fear. She willed it aside—not away, that was beyond her—and made herself think. And felt fury rise up and strangle fear.

“You called him. You came out here in the middle of the night, alone, and called him out like some swaggering gunslinger.”

He hadn’t known she still had that much temper in her. Or that it could, as always, trigger his own. “I like to think it was more Gary Cooper-esque.”

“This is a joke to you, a joke ?” Fury all but swallowed her whole. “You would dare call up what’s mine? You can stand between me and what’s mine to do while I—what—shrink aside wringing my hands?”

“Whatever it takes.”

“You’re not my shield, not my savior. What’s inside me isn’t less than what’s in you.” She shoved him back a step. “I won’t tolerate your interference. You’re meddling because it makes you feel like a hero, and—”

“Take it easy, Mia.” Even as Zack spoke, the keen edge of her gaze cut to him, raked over his face. Recognizing a woman ready to bite out a man’s heart, Zack merely held up both hands, stepped aside. Sam, he decided, was on his own.

“Do you think I need your help?” She rounded on Sam again, drilling a finger into his chest.

“Stop jabbing at me.”

“Do you think because I lack a penis I’m incapable of fighting for what’s mine? So you pull your idiotic, manly display, then call your idiot men friends so you can discuss how to protect the helpless women?”

“I’ve never seen her like his,” Nell whispered and watched, fascinated, as Mia shoved Sam back another step.

“Doesn’t happen often.” Ripley spoke out of the corner of her mouth. “Really cool when it does.” She glanced up as clouds, black as a fresh bruise, boiled into the sky overhead. “Man, she is supremely pissed.”

“I said stop jabbing at me.” Sam curled his fingers around the fist she was currently slapping against his chest. “If you’re finished with your snit . . . Careful,” he warned as thunder bellowed.

“You arrogant, stupid, insulting. . . I’ll show you a snit.” She used her free hand, intending to shove him again. And saw the wince of pain as she bumped his shoulder. “What have you done?”

“We’ve just covered that.”

“Take off your shirt.”

He worked up a leer. “Well, baby, if you want to finish things that way, I’ve got no problem with it. But we’ve got an audience.”

She solved the matter by reaching up and ripping his shirt open.

“Hey.” He’d forgotten how fast she could move. A mistake.

The claw marks on his shoulder were raw and angry. With a little sound of distress, Nell started forward before Ripley stopped her.

“She’ll handle it.”

“You moved out of the circle.” Fear shuddered back to twist painfully with temper. “You deliberately opened yourself to attack.”

“It was a test.” With sorely bruised dignity, Sam yanked what was left of his shirt back in place. “It worked.”

She spun away from him, and since Zack was the closest, he took her first swipe. “Do you forget that it was Nell who brought madness to its knees, even when it held a knife to her throat?”

“No.” He spoke quietly. “It’s not something I’ll ever forget.”

“And you.” She rounded on Mac. “You watched Ripley wage her war against the dark, and beat it back.”

“I know.” Mac shoved the sensor her angry energy had fried into his pocket. “No one here underestimates what any of you are capable of.”

“Don’t you?” Her eyes scorched each one of them in turn before she stepped back to stand with Nell and Ripley. “We are the Three.” She threw up her hands, and light, bright as fire, shot from her fingertips.

“And the power here is beyond you.”

She turned on her heel and strode away.

“Well.” Mac blew out a breath. “Wow.”

“Real scientific, ace.” Ripley tucked her hands into her pockets and nodded at Sam. “You got her stirred up, so you’d better find a way to smooth it out. If you’re stupid enough to do what you did last night, then you’re stupid enough to go after her when she’s shooting live ammo.”

“I guess you’re right.”

She’d nearly reached the edge of the woods when he caught up to her. “Just wait a damn minute.” Sam reached for her arm, then hissed as the electric shock stung his fingers. “Cut it out!”

“Don’t touch me.”

“I’m going to do a hell of a lot more than touch you in a minute.” But he kept his hands to himself until she’d reached her car.

She yanked the door open. He slammed it shut.

“Taking off isn’t going to solve anything.”

“You’re right.” She tossed back her hair. “That’s your usual solution.”

Pain kicked in his gut, but he nodded. “And you’ve just recently demonstrated that you’re so much smarter and more mature. Let’s finish this out away from innocent bystanders. Let’s take a drive.”

“You want to take a drive. Fine. Get in.”

She pulled the door open again, slid behind the wheel. When he was beside her, she eased onto the road.

She kept her speed down as she cut through the village. And the minute she hit the coast road, she let it rip.

She wanted speed, and wind, and the keen edge of danger. All of those things would help carve away some of the anger and help her find her center again.

Her tires squealed as she shot into turns. And because she felt Sam tense beside her, she poured on more speed. She whipped the wheel, and the car shuddered as it clung to the road inches from the edge of the island.

He made some sound in his throat. Deliberately she sent him an icy look. “Problem?”

“No.” Not, he thought, if you considered driving at ninety on a road that curved off into nothing, with a very pissed-off witch behind the wheel, your idea of fun.

As the road climbed, he kept his eyes trained on the stone house on the cliff. It was, at the moment, his nirvana. All he had to do was live to get there.

When she pulled into the drive, he had to take a few deep breaths to get his lungs working again.

“Point taken,” he said, and resisted wiping his damp hands on his jeans. “You’re capable of handling yourself, even when your control meter’s shaky.”

“Thank you so much.” Sarcasm dripped like acid as she stepped out of the car. “Come inside.” She snapped it out. “That wound needs tending.”

Though he wasn’t sure it was wise to put his flesh and blood in her hands at the moment, he followed her up the walk. “The place looks great.”

“I’m not interested in small talk.”

“Then don’t say anything back,” he suggested. He went inside with her. The colors were rich, the wood polished. And the air alive with warm, fragrant welcome.

She’d made changes, he noted. Subtle ones. Mia ones. Mixing elegance with charm. Exquisite taste with simplicity. Though she strode straight back toward the kitchen, he took his time. It might give both of them a chance to cool off.

She’d kept the heavy carved furniture that had been passed down for generations. But she’d added plush, sink-in textures. There were rugs he didn’t recognize, but their age told him they’d been rolled up in some attic and had been unearthed when the house had come under Mia’s control. She used candles and flowers generously. Bowls of colored rocks, chunks of glittering crystals, and the canny little mystical figures she’d always collected. And books. There were books in every room he passed.

When he stepped into the kitchen, she was already taking jars out of a cupboard. There were gleaming copper pots, hanks of drying herbs in their delicate faded tones and scents. The broom by her back door was very old, the restaurant-grade range very new.

“You had some work done in here.” He tapped his fingers against the surface of the dove-gray counter.

[Dalyia]

“Yes. Sit down, take off your shirt.”

Instead, he walked to the windows, looked out over her gardens. “It’s like an illustration out of a book of fairy tales.”

“I enjoy flowers. Sit down, please. We both have work to get back to, and I’d like to see to this.”

“I did what I could with it last night. It just has to heal.”

She merely stood, staring at him, a jar the color of poppies in her hand.

“All right, all right. Maybe you’ll rip a bandage off your petticoat.”

With little grace, he shrugged out of his torn shirt and sat at her kitchen table. The sight of those raw wounds knotted her stomach. She hated seeing anything, anyone, in pain. “What did you use on it?” She bent down, sniffed. Wrinkled her nose. “Garlic. Obvious.”

“It did the trick.” He’d have sawed his tongue in half before admitting the wound was throbbing like a bad tooth.

“Hardly. Be still. Open up,” she ordered. “I’ve no intention of hurting you until after I’ve healed you. Open.”

He did what she asked and felt her magic slide inside him, even as he felt her fingers, coated with soothing balm, slide over his abraded flesh.

He could see it, the warm red of her energy. Taste it, sharp and sweet, like the first bite of a succulent plum. The heavy scent of her, of poppies, clouded his senses.

Drifting, he heard her quiet chant. Without thinking, he turned his head, rubbed his cheek against her forearm.

“I see you in my sleep. I hear your voice inside my head.” As he slid along the silk of her power, he spoke in Gaelic. The language of his blood. “I ache for you, even when I’m with you. Always you.”

When he felt her slipping out of him, he struggled to hold on. But she slid away, and he was left blinking in confusion and swaying in the kitchen chair.

“Ssh.” Her fingers were gentle as she stroked his hair. “Take a moment.”

As his mind cleared, he fisted his hands on the table. “You took me under. You had no right—”

“It would’ve been painful otherwise.”

She’d never been able to stand back from someone’s pain. Turning from him, she capped her jars carefully, gave herself time to settle. Easing his pain had brought on her own. His Gaelic words had bruised her heart.

“And you’re hardly one to throw rights in my face now. I can’t fully erase the wounds. That’s beyond my capabilities. But they’ll heal quickly enough now.”

He angled his head to look at his shoulder. He could barely see the marks, and there was no discomfort. The surprise of that had him studying her. “You’ve improved.”

“I’ve spent considerable time exploring and refining my gifts.” She replaced her jars, then simply lowered her hands to the counter. “I’m so angry with you. So . . . I need the air.”

She crossed to the door and walked outside.

She went to the pool, watched the fish dart gold beneath the lily pads. As she heard him come up behind her, she cupped her elbows with her hands.

“Then be angry. Spit and swear. It won’t change a thing. I have a part in this, Mia. I am part of this. Whether you like it or not.”

“Impulse and machismo have no part in this. Whether you like it or not.”

If she thought he would apologize for what he’d done, she was going to have a long wait. “I saw an opportunity, a possibility, and I took a calculated risk.”

She spun around again. “It’s my risk to take. Mine, not yours.”

“So damn sure of everything. You’ve always been so damn sure. Don’t you ever consider there might be another way?”

“I don’t question what I know here.” She pressed fists to her belly. “And what I know here.” And to her heart. “You can’t take what’s mine to do, and if you could—”

“If I could?”

“I wouldn’t permit it. It’s my birthright.”

“And mine,” he countered. “If I had been able to end it last night, Mia, it would be done.”

She was more weary than angry now. “You know better. You know .” She pushed at her hair, wandered away down a garden path where spearing blades of iris fanned out, waiting for the blooming time. “Change one thing, potentially change a thousand others. Move one piece of the whole indiscriminately, and destroy the whole. There are rules, Sam, and reasons for them.”

“You were always better at rules than I was.” There was a sting of bitterness in the words, and she could taste it even as he did. “How can you expect me to stand to the side? Do you think I can’t see you’re not sleeping or eating well? I can feel you fighting off the fear, and it rips at me.”

She’d turned back as he spoke. How well she remembered that dark anger in him, that restless passion. It had drawn her to the boy. And, God help her, it drew her to the man.

“If I wasn’t afraid, I’d be stupid,” she pointed out. “I’m not stupid. You can’t go behind my back this way. You can’t challenge again what comes for me. I want your word.”

“You can’t have it.”

“Let’s try to be sensible.”

“No.” He took her arms, yanked her against him. “Let’s try something else.”

Hot, and nearly brutal, his mouth took hers. And it was like a branding. She’d pushed and scraped at his feelings even as she’d eased his wound. She’d opened him, tangled herself inside him only to leave him empty again. Now he needed something, would take something back.

His arms pinned hers, leaving her unable to struggle or accept. Leaving her helplessly trapped in a kiss that was all hunger, little heart. The thrill of that, her own pleasure in it, shocked and shamed her. Still, she could have stopped him. She needed only her mind for that. But it was so crowded with him, just as her body was crowded with need.

“I can’t stand it.” He tore his mouth from hers to race his lips over her face. “Be with me or damn me, but do it now.”

She lifted her head until their eyes met. “And if I told you to go? To take your hands off me and go?”

He ran his hand up her back, into her hair. Fisted it there. “Don’t.”

She’d thought she wanted him to suffer. Now that she could see he was, she couldn’t bear it. For either of them.

“Then come inside, and we’ll be with each other.”

Ten

T hey made it to the kitchen before they dived at each other. Pressed against the back door, she let her system rage under his hands.

Oh, to be touched again, stroked by hard hands so foreign and familiar. The wild and wicked freedom of it gushed into her, flooded away questions, worries, doubts. To be wanted like this again, devoured by desperation. To have her own needs matched by equally insatiable ones. She pulled his tattered shirt aside and filled her own hands with hot, smooth flesh. She bit at him, craving the taste. Fueling herself on it, she whispered half-crazed demands as they stumbled out of the kitchen. Something fell, a musical tinkle of glass, as they bumped a table in the hall. Little shards of what had been a crystal faerie’s wings were crushed to glittery dust under his feet. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Her lips skimmed over the wounds on his shoulder. Neither of them noticed when the marks faded away. “Touch me. Don’t stop touching me.”

He’d have cheerfully died first.

He filled his hands with her—curves, slender lines, felt his own primitive thrill when she quivered against him. His blood surged, a primal beat, when her breath caught, then released on a moan. He slid his hands up her legs, groaning at the glorious length of them, at the heat that gathered around the witch mark that rode high on her thigh. With no thought of finesse, he tugged impatiently at the thin barrier of silk.

“I have to—” And plunged his fingers into her. “Oh, God. Sweet God.” His face was buried in her hair when she erupted. “Again, again, again.” Savagery took over so that he fixed his teeth on her throat, driving her while her body bucked and shuddered.

Impossibly hot, wonderfully wet, gloriously soft. He found her mouth again, swallowed her sobbing breaths.

They dragged each other up the stairs. With fast and urgent fingers, he fumbled with, tore at the tiny buttons that ranged down the back of her dress. Snapped threads, exposed flesh.

“I need to see you. To see you.”

The dress slithered to the floor and was left behind. At the top of the steps, he started to pull her to the right.

“No, no.” Nearly sobbing with desperation, she dragged at the button of his jeans. “This way now.”

She circled him to the left, shivering when he snapped open the clasp of her bra. When he filled his hands with her breasts. Soon his mouth, hot and hungry, replaced his hands.

“Let me. Just let me.” Half mad with her, he pulled her arms over her head. Feasted. Mia let her head fall back and relished the helpless and heavy sensation of being ravished. Alive—she was so brutally alive. Even as her heart raged against his greedy mouth, her body wept for more. When he gripped her hips, her arms locked around him in taut, possessive ropes. The bed was steps away, but it might have been miles. His eyes, pure green, burned into the dark smoke of hers. For an instant it seemed the world went still.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”

Then he drove himself into her.

They took each other where they stood, and took hard and fast. The race through pleasure, toward bliss, stole breath and reason as they mated with a kind of willful violence. Her nails scored his back, his fingers dug bruises on her skin, and still they pushed each other for more. Their mouths met, a wild and frenzied feeding, and their bodies plunged relentlessly.

The climax raked her like claws. One long swipe that sliced through her system and laid her bare. Helpless against it, she surrendered. And felt him plunge after her. Sweaty, weak, quivering, they held each other up. They swayed there, slick, bruised flesh to flesh. Lowering his forehead to hers, Sam struggled to draw in air. His body felt as if it had fallen off a mountain and landed in a pool of hot, melted gold.

“I’m a little dizzy,” she managed.

“Me, too. Let’s see if we can get to the bed.”

They stumbled through the haze and fell on Mia’s ancient four-poster together. Lying flat on their backs, they both stared, dazed, at the ceiling.

It wasn’t, he realized, precisely the sexual reunion he’d envisioned for them. His fantasy had involved seduction, sophistication, and a great deal more finesse on his part.

“I was in a little bit of a hurry,” he told her.

“No problem.”

“You know the weight I mentioned you’d put on?”

“Hmmm.” The sound was a low warning.

“It really works for me.” He shifted his hand just enough to skim the side of her breast. “I mean, it really works.”

“You filled out a bit yourself.”

He let himself float, studied the mural on her ceiling. In the night sky, stars glowed and faeries flew. “You moved your bedroom.”

“Yes.”

“Good thing I didn’t follow the impulse to climb up the trellis the other night.”

Because the image brought her back to nights he’d done just that, she sighed. It had been a long time, a very long time, since her body had felt so loose, so used . It made her want to curl up like a cat and purr.

She would have done so once with him. Once they would have turned to each other and, tangled together, would have slept like kittens after a romp.

Those days were over, she thought. But as romps went, they’d done very, very well. “I have to get back to work,” she said.

“So do I.”

They turned their heads, looked at each other, and grinned. “Do you know the beauty of owning your own business?” she asked him.

“Yeah.” He rolled over until his mouth hovered a breath from hers. “Nobody can dock our pay.”

But that didn’t mean you got off scot-free.

When Mia strolled back into the bookstore, Lulu took one look at her and knew. “You did it with him.”

“Lulu!” Hissing, Mia scanned the area for customers.

“If you think it’s not going to show, and people aren’t going to gab about it, then sex gave you instant brain damage.”

“Be that as it may, I’m not going to stand here and discuss it at the cash register.” With her head high, she started toward the stairs and was immediately waylaid by Gladys Macey.

“Hello, there, Mia. Don’t you look pretty today?”

“Hello, Mrs. Macey.” Mia angled her head to read the titles of the books Gladys had picked up. “You’ll have to let me know what you think of that one.” She tapped a finger against a current bestseller. “I haven’t read it yet.”

“I’ll be sure to do that. I heard you had dinner over at the hotel.” Gladys beamed into Mia’s face. “Sam Logan’s making some changes over there, I’m told. The food as good as ever?”

“Yes, I enjoyed it.”

Then Mia looked over her shoulder at Lulu. Considering Lulu’s voice and Gladys’s ears, there was no doubt the opening comment had been heard and digested.

“Would you like to know if Sam and I had sex?” she asked pleasantly.

“Now, honey.” Gladys gave Mia a motherly pat. “Don’t get all dandered up. Besides, it’s hard to look at you and not see right off you’ve got a nice, healthy glow about you. He’s a handsome boy.”

“Troublemaker,” Lulu muttered under her breath, and proved that Gladys’s ears were well tuned.

“Oh, now, Lu, that boy never caused any more trouble than any of the others around here, and less than some.”

“The others didn’t come sniffing around my girl.”

“Well, they certainly did.” Gladys shook her head, calling back to Lulu as if Mia was invisible—or deaf.

“There wasn’t a boy on the island who didn’t sniff around her. Fact is, Sam was the only one who had her sniffing back. I always thought they made a pretty couple.”

“Excuse me.” Mia held up a finger. “I’d like to remind both of you that the boy and the girl who did the sniffing are now full-grown adults.”

“But you still make a pretty couple,” Gladys insisted.

Giving up, Mia leaned over, brushed her lips over Gladys’s cheek. “You have a sweet heart.”

And a wagging tongue, she thought as she walked up to her office. Word would spread like a rash over the island that Sam Logan and Mia Devlin were at it again.

Since she didn’t know how she felt about that, but could do nothing to circumvent it, Mia put the matter in a corner of her mind and went back to work on her proposal.

By four, ignoring the stares, she sailed across the street and into the hotel, where she dropped the envelope containing her proposal at the lobby desk, with a request that it be delivered to Mr. Logan as soon as possible. Then she sailed out again.

To make up for the time she’d lost, she closed herself in the stockroom and concentrated on business. She organized, rearranged, and put together a list of inventory that needed replenishing. The solstice always brought a flood of tourists to the island. It paid to be ready for them. Armed with the stock list, she rose. Then quickly sat again as a wave of dizziness swamped her. Foolish, she berated herself. Careless. She’d had nothing but a half a muffin all day. She got to her feet, thinking she’d pick up a bowl of soup in the café. And an image swam into her brain. Evan Remington stood by a barred window, smiling. And his eyes were as empty as a doll’s. But he turned his head, slowly, so slowly, and those eyes began to glow red and filled with something that wasn’t human.

She had to force herself not to run, to pull her calm around her like a cloak. As the image faded, she left her work behind.

“I have an errand,” she told Lulu as she breezed out of the store. “I’ll be back when I can.”

“Going and coming,” Lulu muttered.

Mia walked straight down to the station house, pausing when she had to exchange a word with an acquaintance. The streets, she noted, were already full of tourists. They strolled and shopped, cruised the island looking for the perfect picnic spot, a new vista. They would crowd into the restaurants at night or go back to their rental houses to cook up fish brought fresh from the docks. Shops were running spring-into-summer sales, and the pizza parlor was offering two free toppings with the purchase of a second large pie. She watched Pete Stubens drive past in his pickup with his beloved dog riding shotgun.

Ripley’s young cousin Dennis flashed by on the opposite sidewalk, hanging ten on his skateboard. His Red Sox jersey flapped like a flag.

It was all so normal, she thought. So easy and right and real.

She was going to do everything in her power to keep it that way.

Zack was at his desk when she walked in, and immediately sprang to his feet. “Now, Mia,” he began.

“I’m not here to pin your ears back.”

“That’s a relief. Nell already took care of that.” To prove it, he rubbed them. “I would like to say we weren’t going behind your backs. We were just looking into a situation. It’s my job to deal with trouble on the island.”

“We can debate that later. Can you check on Evan Remington?”

“Check on?”

“Make sure he’s where he’s supposed to be. What the progress of his treatment is, the prognosis, his recent behavioral patterns.”

He started to ask her why, but the look on her face told him to answer first, then ask questions. “First I can tell you he’s still locked up and he’s going to stay that way. I make it my business to call a couple of contacts of mine every week.” He angled his head. “I assume you don’t consider that little chore out of my scope.”

“Don’t get snotty. Can you get progress reports?”

“I don’t have access to his medical records, if that’s what you mean. I’d need a warrant, and cause to request one. What’s the problem?”

“He’s still part of this, padded cell or not.”

Zack was around the desk in two strides, and had his hand wrapped firm on Mia’s arm. “Is he a threat to Nell?”

“No.” What was it like to be loved so utterly? she wondered. Once, she’d thought she knew. “Not directly. Not like before. But he’s being used. I wonder if he knows it?”

It was essential to find out.

“Where’s Ripley?”

“Out doing her job.” His grip tightened. “Is she in trouble?”

“Zack, both Nell and Ripley have done what they were meant to do. But I need to talk to them. Would you tell them both to come up to the house tonight? By seven if they can.”

Now Zack’s grip lightened to a caress and ran up to her shoulder. “You’re in trouble.”

“No.” Her voice was clear and calm. “I’m in control.”

She believed it absolutely. Just as she understood the value of that faith, and that sense of self. Doubts, questions, fears would only diminish power when she needed it most. The vision had come unbidden, and with some physical distress. She wouldn’t take such a thing lightly. She prepared carefully. It was not a time for rash behavior or showmanship, though she often appreciated the flash and the flare.

It seemed now that much of what had happened that day had been meant to prepare her. Her purging of temper that morning, the fasting, and yes, the sex. Ridding the body of frustration and celebrating one of its more joyful purposes would only aid her in what was to come.

[Dalyia]

The herbs and oils for her ritual bath were chosen with deliberation. Rose for psychic power and divination. Carnation for protection. Iris for wisdom that she might understand what was shown to her. By the light of candles inscribed for her quest, she immersed herself, washing body and hair, cleansing her mind.

Using creams she’d made herself, she coated her skin before slipping into a long, loose robe of white. She selected her charms and pendant carefully. Dendritic agate for protection in travel, amethyst to sharpen her third eye. She hung malachite from her ears, for vision questing. She gathered her tools, her divination wand with moonstone at the tip. Incense and candles, bowls and sea salt. Knowing that she might need it, she selected a tonic for restorative energy. Then she went into her garden, to gather peace and wait for her sisters. They came together and found her sitting on a stone bench beside a bed of nodding columbine.

“I need your help,” she said. “I’ll tell you on the way to the clearing.”

They were barely into the forest, the light dimming with dusk, when Ripley stopped. “You shouldn’t be the one to do this. A flight leaves you too open, too vulnerable.”

“Which is why I need my circle,” Mia countered.

“I should do it.” Nell touched Mia’s arm. “Evan’s most directly connected to me.”

“Which is exactly why you shouldn’t do it,” Ripley argued. “The connection’s too close. I’ve already done this once, so I should do it again.”

“You flew without preparation, without protection, and you were harmed.” Reminding herself that there was patience in reason, Mia continued to walk. “The vision came to me, unbidden. This is for me to do, and I’m fully prepared. You don’t have enough control as yet,” she said to Ripley. “And you, little sister, not enough experience. Even disregarding both those facts, this is for me. We all know it, so let’s not waste any more time.”

“I don’t like it,” Ripley said. “Especially after what happened to Sam last night.”

“Unlike some men, I don’t have to prove my heroism. My body stays within the circle.”

She set her bag down in the clearing and began to cast the circle. Nell lit the candles. She was calm because calm was needed. “Tell me what to do if something goes wrong.”

“Nothing will,” Mia assured her.

“If.”

“If, then. You pull me back.” She looked up and saw the glow in the trees as the moon began its rise.

“We’ll begin.”

She disrobed, standing in the arms of the young night in nothing but crystals. Holding out her hands for her sisters’, she began the chant that would free her consciousness from the shell of her body. And let her fly.

“Open window, open door. I seek to see, I seek to soar. Over sea and into sky, my spirit lifts, my senses fly. It is within my gift of power to command this airy hour and to ask that what I see bring no harm to them or me. As I will, so mote it be.”

There was a slow and lovely sense of weightlessness, of lifting out of the shell that held the spirit bound to the earth. She floated free of it, a bird rising on the wing. And, for a moment only, allowed herself to embrace the glory of it.

Such a gift was golden, but she knew the ribbons that tethered her to the earth could be carelessly snapped. Even for the thrill of flight, she wouldn’t trade her reality. She beamed over the sea where the starlight was reflected like bits of sparkling glass scattered on black velvet. From deep within its depths came whale song, and the music carried her to the far shore. The buzz of traffic, conversations within houses, the scent of trees and of dinners cooking all swirled below her as life drove forward.

She heard the outraged cry of a newborn pushed into life. And the last sigh of the dying. The quick, soft brush as souls passed on their way. She kept the light of them around her, and sought the dark. He had such hate in him. The breadth of it was infinite, and layered, and not, she realized as she drew closer, all his own. What was in Evan Remington was a rancid mix, one that offended the senses. But she could see as she watched the orderlies, the guards, the doctors move through the facility where Remington was imprisoned, that none of them caught the underlying stench. She let the thoughts, the voices of the others bleed away, and focused on Remington and what used him. He was in his room for the night, a cell far removed from the plush surroundings he’d once commanded. She saw he had changed considerably from the night in the woods when Nell had defeated him. His hair was thinner, his face rounder, with the jowls beginning to sag beneath deep, sharp lines of dissipation. No longer handsome, no longer smooth, his face had begun to mirror what he’d hidden inside him for so many years.

He wore loose orange coveralls and paced his cell like a soldier on sentry duty.

“They can’t keep me here. They can’t keep me here. I have work. I’m going to miss my plane. Where is that bitch?” He spun away from his cell door, and his pale eyes searched the small space. His mouth folded down as if in mild annoyance. “She’s late again. I’ll have to punish her. She leaves me no choice.”

Someone from outside shouted at him to shut the fuck up, but he continued to pace, continued to rant.

“Can’t she see I have business? I have responsibilities? She’s not going to get away with it. Who the hell does she think she is! Whores, every one of them whores.”

Suddenly, like a puppet on a string, his head jerked up, and his eyes were madness slicked thin over hate. Madness began to glow red.

“Don’t you know I see you, whore-bitch? I’ll kill you before it’s done.”

The blast of power slammed into her, a fist in the belly. She felt herself waver, then bore down. “You’re pathetic. You use a madman to horde your power. I need only myself.”

“Your death will be slow and painful. I’ll keep you alive long enough so that you see it all destroyed.”

“We’ve already beaten you twice.” She sensed the next whip of energy and deflected it. But it took all of her strength, and she felt her link shudder as Remington’s head changed into that of a snapping wolf.

“And the third time’s the charm,” she finished; and pulled herself back. She poured back into her body, staggered, and might have fallen if Nell and Ripley hadn’t supported her.

“Are you hurt?” At the urgency in Nell’s voice Mia struggled to settle again. “Mia?”

“No, I’m not hurt.”

“You were gone too damn long,” Ripley told her.

“Just long enough.”

“So you say.” Still gripping Mia’s hand, Ripley jerked her head. “We’ve got company.”

As the visions cleared out of her mind, Mia saw Sam standing just outside the circle. He wore black, the long coat swirling in the night air.

“Finish it, and close the circle.” His voice was brisk, businesslike. “Before you collapse.”

“I know what to do.” She reached for the tonic Nell was already pouring into a cup. Because she was not yet steady, she took the cup with both hands. And she drank until she no longer felt as if her body was a mist ready to be swept away by the wind.

“Close the circle,” Sam demanded. “Or I come in, regardless.”

Ignoring him now, she offered thanks for a safe flight and, with her sisters, closed the circle.

“It continues to use Remington.” She slipped into her robe and belted it, though her skin felt as thin, as fragile, as the silk. “More like a vessel than a source, but still some of both. It fills him up with hatred of women, of female power, then uses the mix to feed its own energy. It’s potent, but not without vulnerability.”

She reached down for her bag, and when she straightened, swayed.

“That’s enough.” In one motion, Sam swept her into his arms. “She needs to sleep this off. I know what to do for her.”

“He’s right.” Ripley put a hand on Nell’s shoulder as Sam carried Mia out of the clearing. “He knows what she needs.”

Mia’s head spun, infuriating her. “I just need to get my balance. I can’t get it unless I’m on my feet.”

“There was a time you weren’t so twitchy about needing help.”

“I wouldn’t be twitchy if I needed help. And I don’t need you to—” She bit off the words. “I’m sorry, and you’re right.”

“Boy, you must be shaky.”

She let her head rest on his shoulder. “I’m queazy.”

“I know, baby. We’ll fix it. How’s the headache?”

“It’s not bad. Really. I’d have come back sturdier, but I had to come back fast. Damn it, Sam, this dizziness is . . .” Gray began to swim at the edges of her vision. “It’s not passing off. I’m going under.”

“That’s all right. Go ahead.”

For once she did exactly as he suggested and didn’t argue. When she went limp in his arms, he continued to carry her toward the house. He would curse her later, he told himself, when she could fight back. For now, he took her inside and up to her bed.

Knowing she had to sleep long and deep didn’t make it any easier for Sam to see her, so pale, so still in the shadowy light of her bedroom. He knew what could be done, and tending to her at least helped keep his mind on the practical.

He knew what protective oils and creams she’d used. He could smell them on her skin. After he laid her in bed, he gathered the proper incense and candles to bolster what she’d already used. She always had been an organized soul, he thought as he checked the shelves and cupboards in her tower room for the supplies he needed.

Even here she had flowers—clay pots of violets—and books. He scanned the books, selected one on healing spells and charms in case he needed to refresh his memory.

In her kitchen he found the herbs he needed, and though it had been some time since he’d practiced any kitchen magic, he steeped a pot of rue tea to aid her in spiritual cleansing. She was deeply asleep when he returned. He lighted the candles and incense, then sitting beside her, slid his mind into hers.

“Mia, you need to drink, then you can rest.”

He trailed his fingers over her cheeks, then brushed his mouth over her mouth. Her eyes opened, but the gray was blurred. She was limp as water as he lifted her head and put the cup to her lips.

“Now you drink and heal in sleep. Dreams will take you far and deep. Through the night and into the light.”

He brushed the hair from her face as he eased her down again. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“No. I’m alone here.”

“You’re not.” He lifted her hand to his lips as her eyes closed again. “I’ll wait for you.”

She let go of him, and slid into dreams.

She saw herself, a child, sitting in the rose garden her parents had neglected. Butterflies fluttered in the palms of her upturned hands as if her fingers were petals.

She and Ripley, so young and eager, lighting the Beltane fire in the clearing. Sprawled on the floor in front of the fire while Lulu sat in a chair, knitting. Walking on the beach with Sam on a hot, close summer night. And the beat, beat, beat of her heart as he drew her up, drew her in. The world standing still, holding its breath in that magical instant before their first kiss.

The feel of tears, the hot flood of them as they’d gushed out of her shattered heart. He’d walked away

[Dalyia]

so carelessly, left her broken and grieving as she stood by a pretty pool of early spring violets. I’m not coming back.

With that one statement, he’d broken her to pieces.

Dreams floated in and out, and she with them. She saw herself standing in her summer garden, teaching Nell how to stir the air. She felt the joy of clasping hands, at last, with both of her sisters in a circle of unity and power.

She saw the soft colors and sweetness of Nell’s wedding, the bright promise of Ripley’s. She watched as they began yet another circle without her, as was meant to be.

And she was alone.

“Fate moves us, and then we choose.”

She stood on the cliffs now, with the one who was called Fire. Mia turned, looked into the face so like her own.

“I regret no choice I’ve made,” Mia said.

“Nor did I. Nor can I now.”

“To die for love is a poor choice.”

The one called Fire lifted her brows, and there was an innate arrogance in the gesture. In the night wind, her hair streamed like flames. “Yet it was mine. If I had chosen differently, daughter, perhaps you would not be here now. Would not be what you are. So I have no regrets. Will you say the same at the end of your time?”

“I cherish my gift and bring no harm. I live my life, and live it well.”

“As did I.” She spread her arms. “We hold this place, but the time grows short. See.” She gestured to where the fog boiled along the edge of the rocks. “It craves most what it cannot have, and what it cannot have will, in the end, defeat it.”

“What is there to do that I haven’t done?” Mia demanded. “What’s left for me?”

“Everything.” With that last word, she vanished.

And Mia was alone.

Lulu was alone. Sleeping deeply under her hodgepodge quilt, floating on dreams. Unaware of the dark mists gathering outside her house, rising up to slither around her windows. And through the cracks. She stirred, she shivered, when that cold mist slid over her, snuck under the covers to crawl over her skin. With a little sound of protest, she burrowed deeper under the quilt, but found no warmth.

She heard the baby crying, long wails of misery. In a mother’s automatic response, she tossed the covers aside, rose in the dark, and started out of the bedroom.

“Okay, okay, I’m coming.”

In the dream she walked, sleepily, down the long corridor of the house on the cliff. She felt the smooth wood under her feet—and not the rough grass of her own yard as she left her house, moving through the thickening fog. Her eyes were open, but she saw the door to the baby’s room, and not the street where she walked, the quiet houses she passed.

She didn’t see or sense the black wolf stalking behind her.

She reached out, opened the door that wasn’t there as she trudged around the corner toward the beach. The crib was empty, and the baby’s wails became screams of terror.

“Mia!” She ran, hurling herself across High Street, which was a maze of corridors in her mind. “Where are you?”

She ran, breath heaving, fear rising as she pounded on locked doors and raced toward the sound of the baby’s cries.

She fell, scoring her hands on the sand of the beach and feeling her fingers dig into thick carpet. She was weeping, calling for her baby as she pushed herself to her feet, swayed, then raced on. In the dream she flew down the main staircase and out into the black night, then plunged into the sea. The surf knocked her back, knocked her down, but in a blind fury to find and protect her child, she fought her way up again, pushed her way through the waves.

Even as the water closed over her head, her eyes were open, and the baby’s screams pounded in her ears.

There was a great weight on her chest, and the sharp taste of vomit in her throat. She gagged, heaved again.

“She’s breathing. It’s okay, Lulu, take it easy.”

Her eyes burned, refused to focus. Through the haze over them she made out Zack’s face. Water dripped from his hair and onto her cheeks.

“What the hell is this?” she demanded, and her voice came out in a croak that hurt her throat.

“Oh, God, Lulu.” Nell knelt on the sand beside her, grabbed her hand and pressed it to her own cheek.

“Thank God.”

“She’s still in shock.” Ripley nudged her brother aside and spread a blanket over Lulu.

“Shock, my ass.” Lulu managed to sit up, coughed violently enough that she considered passing out. But she bore down and stared at the faces surrounding her. Nell was weeping openly, and Mac, soaking wet, crouched beside her. Ripley sat on the sand now, and with her brother’s help, arranged the blanket over Lulu’s shoulders.

“Where’s Mia?” she demanded.

“She’s at home, she’s with Sam,” Nell told her. “She’s safe.”

“Okay.” Lulu began to draw slow and careful breaths. “What the hell am I doing out here, soaking wet, in the middle of the night?”

“Good question.” Zack considered a moment, then decided flat truth was best. “Nell woke up and knew you were in trouble.”

“So did I,” Ripley added. “I’d barely fallen asleep when I heard you shouting in my head, for Mia. Then the vision hit like a freight train.” She glanced at Nell then. “I saw you walking out of your house, saw the fog closing in.”

“And the black dog,” Nell murmured, and waited for Ripley to nod. “Stalking you. I was afraid we wouldn’t get to you in time.”

Lulu held up a hand a moment, trying to clear her head. “I walked into the water? For Christ’s sake.”

“It lured you there,” Mac replied. “Do you know how?”

“I had a dream, that’s all. A nightmare. Walked in my sleep.”

“Let’s get her home, and warm,” Nell said, but Ripley shook her head.

“Not yet. You damn near drowned in your sleep.” Her tone turned sharp and angry. “So don’t pull the stubborn crap on me. If Nell and I hadn’t linked in, we’d have found you dead in the morning, washed up in the fucking tide.”

Because Ripley’s voice broke, she clenched her teeth and spoke through them. “My brother and my man pulled you out, and Zack pumped the life back into you. Don’t you dare brush this off.”

“Stop it now. Stop that crying.” Shaken, Lulu gave Ripley’s arm a little shake. “I just had a bad spell, that’s all. Nothing more than that to it.”

“It lured you here,” Mac repeated.

“That’s just bull.” But she started to shiver again, from a cold inside her bones. “Why would this thing want to hurt me? I’ve got no power.”

“It hurts you,” Mac said, “it hurts Mia. You’re a part of her, Lu, so you’re part of this. What would’ve happened to the island—to the children the sisters left behind—if they hadn’t had the nurse to tend them?

And we should’ve taken that into account before. It was stupid not to. Careless.”

“We won’t be careless anymore.” Nell wrapped her arm around Lulu’s shoulders. “She’s cold. We need to get her home.”

She let herself be carried, let herself be pampered, even tucked into bed. She felt her age, and then

some, but she wasn’t done yet.

“I don’t want Mia to know about this.”

“What?” Ripley jammed her fists onto her hips. “A near-death experience rattle your brain?”

“Think about what your man said back on the beach. Hurt me, hurt her. If she’s worried about me, she’s distracted.” With her glasses back in place, she turned to Mac and saw him clearly. “She needs all her strength, all her wits to finish this. Have I got that right?”

“She needs to be strong, but—”

“Then why muck her up?” There was nothing—nothing—more vital than Mia’s well-being. “How do we know this didn’t happen tonight just to make her upset and worried about me so she’s vulnerable?

What’s done’s done, and telling her doesn’t change it.”

“She could help protect you,” Nell put in.

“I can take care of myself.” The minute the statement was out, she caught Zack’s lifted eyebrows. And huffed out a breath. “Been doing it for longer than any of you’ve been alive. Added to that, I’ve got me a big strong sheriff, a smart scientist, and a couple of witches looking out for me.”

“She may be right about this.” Ripley thought of how pale, how fragile Mia had been when she’d come back from the flight. “Let’s at least agree to keep it to ourselves until telling Mia has a purpose. Nell and I can put protection around the house.”

“You go right ahead,” Lulu invited.

“I can set up a sensor,” Mac put in. “So if there’s any energy change, you’d be alerted.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Lulu firmed her jaw. “Mia’s the target. Nothing and no one’s going to use me to hurt her. That’s a promise.”

Eleven

T he candles burned low, and the air was full of fragrance and soft light when she woke. She felt him there almost before she felt herself. The warmth of his hand over hers, the weight of his worry. For an instant only, the years vanished and her heart was light with love. What she’d felt once, what she felt now, collided and dissolved before she could hold either.

“Here, drink this.” As he had hours before, he lifted her head, held a cup to her lips. But this time she sniffed speculatively before she sipped. “Hyssop. Good choice.”

“How do you feel?”

“Well enough. Better, I’d say, than you. There was no need for you to sit up all night.” The cat that had curled beside her now slithered under her hand for stroking. “What time is it?”

[Dalyia]

“Sunrise.” Sam rose now, began to extinguish the candles. “You only had about nine hours. You could probably use more.”

“No.” She sat up, shook back her hair. “I’m awake. And starving.”

He glanced back. She sat in the old bed, her face flushed with sleep, the black cat in her lap. He wanted to slide into bed with her. Just to hold, just to rest. Just to be. “I’ll fix you something.”

“You’ll cook breakfast?”

“I can manage eggs and toast,” he answered as he stalked out of the room.

“Cranky,” Mia said to Isis. The cat swished her tail, then leaped off the bed to trot out after Sam. He brewed coffee first in hopes that a strong shot of caffeine would clear his head and improve his mood. He didn’t question the fact that his tender feelings, his steady concern of the night, had jumped straight to annoyance the minute she’d awakened and looked at him.

A man needed some defense.

While the coffeemaker grumbled, he turned on the cold water tap in the sink and dunked his head under the flow. And rapped his head smartly against the faucet when the cat brushed up against his legs. He saw stars, swore, then smacked the water off and came up dripping. When Mia walked in, he was standing, glaring at the cat, with water running down his face. She picked up a fresh dish towel and passed it to him.

“You’re welcome to use the shower if you’d like to do more than soak your head.” After exchanging a decidedly female glance with the cat, Mia opened the door to let her out. Rather than trust himself to speak, Sam wrenched open the refrigerator, took out a carton of eggs. Mia reached down to get a skillet out of a cupboard, then held out a hand. “Why don’t I take care of this?”

“I said I’d fix some damn eggs, so I’ll fix some damn eggs.”

“All right.” Complacently, she set the skillet on a burner before moving over to get down two mugs. She poured, trying to keep her lips from twitching while Sam slammed around her kitchen. But the first sip of coffee made her eyes water.

“God. Well, this is strong enough to go ten rounds with the champ.”

Sam slapped an egg on the side of a bowl. “Any other complaints?”

“No.” She decided to be broad-minded and not mention the bits of shell that had gone into the bowl along with the egg. Sipping delicately, she wandered to the back door again, and opened it to the morning air. “It’s going to rain.”

Barefoot, her white robe billowing, she stepped outside to look at her garden and leave Sam to brood. Wind chimes tinkled as she wound along the paths. There were always surprises. A new bloom just opened, a bud just hazed with color. The blend of continuity and change was one of the great appeals of the garden for her.

She glanced back toward the kitchen. The boy she’d loved was now the man fixing her breakfast. Continuity and change, she thought with a sigh. She supposed, under it all, that was one of Sam Logan’s great appeals for her.

And because she remembered he’d held her hand while she slept, she broke off a tightly budded peony. Curving her hand over it, she encouraged the bud to unfurl and free its soft, fragrant pink petals. Brushing it against her cheek, she went back to the house.

He was at the stove, looking wonderfully out of his element. His legs were spread, and the spatula held like a weapon in his hand. He was burning the eggs.

Foolishly moved, she crossed to him and gently turned off the flame. She kissed his cheek, handed him the flower. “Thank you for watching over me.”

“You’re welcome.” He turned away to reach for plates, then simply laid his forehead against the glass doors of her cupboard. “Damn it, Mia. Damn it! Why didn’t you tell me what you were going to do?

Why didn’t you call me?”

“I’ve gotten out of the habit of calling you.”

He straightened, a mix of anger and hurt enveloping him.

“I don’t say that to hurt you.” She spread her hands. “I don’t. It simply is. I’m used to doing things my way, and on my own.”

“Fine. Fine.” But it wasn’t. He rattled plates as he dragged them out of the cupboard. “When it’s you, it’s just being who you are and doing what you do. But when it’s me, I’m going behind your back.”

She opened her mouth. Then was forced to close it again and clear her throat. “You have a point.” She walked by him to get jam out of the refrigerator. “However, what you did on your own was step into my territory, risk bodily harm, then call out the troops.”

“Your territory isn’t exclusive. And you risked bodily harm.”

“That’s a matter of debate. I didn’t do this behind your back, not deliberately. In hindsight, I’ll admit your presence in the circle would have been valuable.” She set the toast, stone-cold and crisp at the edges, on the table. “You’re a better witch than you are a cook.”

“You’re a hell of a lot cockier than you used to be,” he countered. “And you always were cocky.”

“Confident,” she corrected. “You were cocky.”

“A fine distinction.” He sat with her, scooping half the eggs onto his plate, half on hers. The peony lay pretty and pink between them. He took his first bite. “These are terrible.”

She sampled, tasting scorched egg and bits of shell. “Yes, yes, they are.”

When he grinned at her she laughed and went right on eating.

He took her up on the shower and ran the spray hot to ease muscles stiff from the night’s vigil. He supposed they’d called a truce, a moratorium of sorts over lousy eggs and cold toast. Maybe, he thought, they’d taken a tentative step toward being friends again.

He’d missed that part of them, too. The easy silences, the shared laughter. He’d known when she was sad, often before she knew it herself. He’d felt the thousand little pinpricks of her hurt whenever her parents had blithely, benevolently, ignored the child they’d made between them. Even before he and she had become lovers they’d been a part of each other. And how could he explain to her that it had been the link, the absolute and unquestioned link in the chain of their destinies, that had driven him to break the tie?

She didn’t ask, and he didn’t say. He thought that was for the best, at least for now. At least until they were friends again.

The muscles in his belly contracted when she stepped in behind him, slipped her arms around him, pressed her wet body against his back.

“I thought you might share.” She nipped playfully at his shoulder. This time, they were fated to reverse the process. Lovers first.

He turned, and fisting his hands in her hair, dragged her with him under the pounding spray.

“You have the water too hot,” she told him, turning her head as his mouth rubbed along the side of her throat.

“I needed hot.”

She picked up a bottle, squirted some of the pale green liquid over both their heads.

“Wait! What is that? Girl stuff?”

Amused, she reached up to lather it in his hair. God, she’d always loved his hair. So black and thick and untamed. Wet, it fell nearly to his shoulders, a dark rain of silk.

“My own blend. The rosemary promotes hair growth, not that you need it, and smells good. Even for manly men.”

He worked it into her hair as well. Sniffed at it. “It’s not just rosemary.”

“Not just. Some calendula, linden flowers, nasturtium.”

“Girl stuff.” Suds slid down their bodies, slicking them. “It works on you.”