Chapter 12
Seeking solitude and occupation, Glenna poured a glass of wine, got out a pad of paper and a pencil and sat down at the kitchen table.
An hour, she thought, of quiet, where she could settle down, make some lists. Then maybe she would sleep.
When she heard someone approaching, her back went up. In a house this size, couldn’t everyone find some place else to be?
But King came in, and stood, shifting his weight, digging his hands into his pockets.
“Well?” was all she said.
“Ah, sorry about breaking Hoyt’s face.”
“It’s his face, you should apologize to him.”
“We know where we stand. Just wanted to clear it with you.” When she said nothing, he scratched the top of his head through his thick hair, and if a man of six six and two hundred and seventy pounds could squirm, King squirmed.
“Listen, I run up, and that light’s blasting, and he’s lying there bleeding and burning. Guy’s my first sorcerer,” King continued after another pause. “I’ve only known him like a week. I’ve known Cian since... a really long time, and I owe him pretty much everything.”
“So when you found him hurt, naturally you assumed his brother tried to kill him.”
“Yeah. Figured you had a part in it, too, but I couldn’t beat the hell out of you.”
“I appreciate the chivalry.”
The sting in her tone made him wince. “You sure got a way of cutting a man down to size.”
“It would take a chain saw to cut you down to size. Oh, stop looking so pitiful and guilty.” With a sigh, she scooped back her hair. “We screwed up, you screwed up, and we’re all goddamn sorry about it. I suppose you want some wine now. Maybe a cookie.”
He had to grin. “I’ll take a beer.” He opened the refrigerator, got one out. “I’ll pass on the cookie. You’re a butt-kicker, Red. Quality I admire in a woman—even if it’s my butt getting the boot.”
“I never used to be. I don’t think.”
She was also pretty and pale, and had to be dog tired. He’d worked her, all of them, damned hard that afternoon, and Cian had put them through the wringer tonight.
Sure she’d bitched a little, King thought now. But not nearly as much as he’d expected. And when it came down to it, Hoyt was right. She’d been the only one who’d known the answer to what the hell they were doing here.
“That stuff Hoyt was talking about, what you said, it makes a lot of sense. We don’t straighten up, we’re easy pickings.” He popped the cap off the beer, swallowed half the bottle in one long gulp. “So I will if you will.”
She looked at the enormous hand he held out, then placed hers in it. “I think Cian’s lucky to have someone who’ll fight for him. Who’d care enough to.”
“He’d do the same for me. We go back.”
“That kind of friendship usually takes time to form, to solidify. We’re not going to have that kind of time.”
“Guess we’d better take some shortcuts then. We cool now?”
“I’d say we’re cool now.”
He polished off the beer, then dumped the empty bottle in a can under the sink. “Heading up. You ought to do the same. Get some sleep.”
“I will.”
But when he left her alone, she was bruised and tired and restless, so Glenna sat alone in the kitchen with her glass of wine and the lights on full to beat back the dark. She didn’t know the time and wondered if it mattered any longer.
They were all becoming vampires—sleeping through most of the day, working through most of the night.
She fingered the cross around her neck as she continued to write her list. And she felt the press of the night against her shoulder blades like cold hands.
She missed the city, she decided. No shame in admitting it. She missed the sounds of it, the colors, the constant thrum of traffic that was a heartbeat. She yearned for its complexity and simplicity. Life was just life there. And if there was death, if there was cruelty and violence, it was all so utterly human.
The image of the vampire on the subway flashed into her mind.
Or she’d once had the comfort of believing it was human.
Still, she wanted to get up in the morning and wander down to the deli for fresh bagels. She wanted to set her easel in the slash of morning light and paint, and have her strongest concern be how she was going to pay her Visa bill.
All of her life the magic had been in her, and she’d thought she’d valued and respected it. But it had been nothing to this, to know that it was in her for this reason, for this purpose.
That it could very well be the death of her.
She picked up her wine, then jolted when she saw Hoyt standing in the doorway.
“Not a good idea to go creeping around in the dark, considering the situation.”
“I wasn’t sure I should disturb you.”
“Might as well. Just having my own private pity party. It’ll pass,” she said with a shrug. “I’m a little homesick. Small potatoes compared to how you must feel.”
“I stand in the room I shared with Cian when we were boys and feel too much, and not enough.”
She rose, got a second glass, poured wine. “Have a seat.” She sat down again, set the wine on the table. “I have a brother,” she told him. “He’s a doctor, just starting. He has a whiff of magic, and he uses it to heal. He’s a good doctor, a good man. He loves me, I know, but he doesn’t understand me very well. It’s hard not to be understood.”
How could it be, he wondered, that there had never been a woman in his life other than family he could speak to about anything that truly mattered. And now, with Glenna, he knew he could, and would, talk with her of anything. And everything.
“It troubles me, the loss of him, of what we were to each other.”
“Of course it does.”
“His memories of me—Cian’s—are faded and old while mine are fresh and strong.” Hoyt lifted his glass. “Yes, it’s difficult not to be understood.”
“What I am, what’s in me, I used to feel smug about it. Like it was a shiny prize I held in my hands, just for me. Oh, I was careful with it, grateful for it, but still smug. I don’t think I ever will be again.”
“With what we touched tonight, I’m doubting either of us could be smug again.”
“Still, my family, my brother, didn’t understand—not fully—that smugness or that prize. And they won’t understand—not fully—the price I’m paying for it now. They can’t.”
She reached out, laid a hand over Hoyt’s. “He can’t. So, while our circumstances may be different, I understand the loss you’re talking about. You look terrible,” she said more lightly. “I can help ease that bruising a little more.”
“You’re tired. It can wait.”
“You didn’t deserve it.”
“I let it take control. I let it fly out of me.”
“No, it flew away from us. Who can say if it wasn’t meant to.” She’d bundled her hair up to train, to work, and now pulled out the pins so it fell, messily, just short of her shoulders.
“Look, we learned, didn’t we? We’re stronger together than either of us could have anticipated. What we’re responsible for now is learning how to control it, channel it. And believe me, the rest of them will have more respect now, too.”
He smiled a little. “That sounds a bit smug.”
“Yeah, I guess it does.”
He drank some wine and realized he was comfortable for the first time in hours. Just sitting in the bright kitchen with night trapped outside the glass, with Glenna to talk with.
Her scent was there, just on the edges of his senses. That earthy, female scent. Her eyes, so clear and green, showed some light bruising of fatigue on the delicate skin beneath them.
He nodded toward the paper. “Another spell?”
“No, something more pedestrian. Lists. I need more supplies. Herbs and so forth. And Moira and Larkin need clothes. Then we need to work out some basic household rules. So far it’s been up to me and King for the most part. The cooking, that is. A household doesn’t run itself, and even when you’re preparing for war, you need food and clean towels.”
“There are so many machines to do the work.” He glanced around the kitchen. “It should be simple enough.”
“You’d think.”
“There used to be an herb garden. I haven’t walked the land, not really.” Put it off, he admitted. Put off seeing the changes, and what remained the same. “Cian might have had one planted. Or I could bring it back. The earth remembers.”
“Well, that can go on the list for tomorrow. You know the woods around here. You should be able to tell me where to find the other things I need. I can go out in the morning and harvest.”
“I knew them,” he said half to himself.
“We need more weapons, Hoyt. And eventually more hands to wield them.”
“There will be an army in Geall.”
“We hope. I know a few like us, and Cian—it’s likely he knows some like him. We may want to start enlisting.”
“More vampyres? Trusting Cian’s been difficult enough. As for more witches, we’re still learning each other, as we learned tonight. We were to start with those we have. We’ve barely begun. But weapons. We can make them as we made the crosses.”
She picked up her wine again, drank, breathed out slowly. “Okay. I’m game.”
“We’ll take them with us when we go to Geall.”
“Speaking of. When and how?”
“How? Through the Dance. When? I can’t know. I have to believe we’ll be told when it’s time. That we’ll know when it’s time.”
“Do you think we’ll ever be able to get back? If we live? Do you think we’ll be able to get back home?”
He looked over at her. She was sketching, her eyes on her pad, her hand steady. Her cheeks were pale, he noted, from fatigue and stress. Her hair was bright and bold, swinging forward as she dipped her head.
“Which disturbs you most?” he wondered. “Dying or not seeing your home again?”
“I’m not entirely sure. Death is inevitable. None of us get out of that one. And you hope—or I have—that when the time comes you’ll have courage and curiosity, and so face it well.”
Absently, she tucked her hair behind her ear with her left hand while her right continued to sketch. “But that’s always been in the abstract. Until now. It’s hard to think about dying, harder to think about it knowing I might not see home again, or my family. They won’t understand what happened to me.”
She glanced up. “And I’m preaching to the choir.”
“I don’t know how long they lived. How they died. How long they looked for me.”
“It would help to know.”
“Aye, it would.” He shook it off, angled his head. “What do you draw there?”
She pursed her lips at the sketch. “It seems to be you.” She turned it around, nudged it toward him.
“Is this how you see me?” His voice sounded puzzled, and not entirely pleased. “So stern.”
“Not stern. Serious. You’re a serious man. Hoyt McKenna.” She printed the name on the sketch. “That’s how it would be written and said today. I looked it up.” She signed the sketch with a quick flourish. “And your serious nature is very attractive.”
“Serious is for old men and politicians.”
“And for warriors, for men of power. Knowing you, being attracted to you, makes me realize what I knew before you were boys. Apparently, I like much older men these days.”
He sat, looking at her, with the sketch and the wine between them. With worlds between them, he told himself. And still he’d never felt closer to anyone. “To sit here like this with you, in the house that’s mine, but not, in a world that’s mine, but not, you’re the single thing I want.”
She rose, moved to him, put her arms around him. He rested his head just under her breasts, listened to her heart.
“Is it comfort?” she asked.
“Yes. But not only that. I have such a need for you. I don’t know how to hold it inside me.”
She lowered her head, closing her eyes as she rested her cheek on his hair. “Let’s be human. For what’s left of tonight, let’s be human, because I don’t want to be alone in the dark.” She framed his face, lifted it to hers. “Take me to bed.”
He took her hands as he got to his feet. “Such things haven’t changed in a millennium, have they?”
She laughed. “Some things never change.”
He kept her hand in his as they walked from the kitchen. “I haven’t bedded many women—being a serious man.”
“I haven’t been bedded by many men—being a sensible woman.” At the door to her room she turned to him with a quick, wicked smile. “But I think we’ll manage.”
“Wait.” He brought her to him before she could open the door, and laid his lips on hers. She felt warmth, and an underlying shimmer of power.
Then he opened the door.
He’d lighted the candles, she saw. Every one of them, so the room was full of gilded light and soft scent. The fire burned as well, a low red simmer.
It touched a place in her heart even as it rippled anticipation over her skin.
“A very nice start. Thank you.” She heard the click of the key in the lock, pressed a hand to her heart. “I’m nervous. All of a sudden. I’ve never been nervous about being with someone. Not even that first time. That smugness again.”
He didn’t mind her nerves. In fact, they added an edge to his own arousal. “Your mouth. This fullness here.” He traced a fingertip over her bottom lip. “I can taste it in my sleep. You distract me, even when you’re not with me.”
“That annoys you.” She reached up to link her arms around his neck. “I’m so glad.”
She eased toward him, watching his gaze drop to her mouth, linger before it came back to hers. Felt his breath mix with her breath, and his heart beat against her heart. They held there, one endless moment, then their lips met. And they sank into each other.
Nerves fluttered in her belly again, a dozen velvet wings that swept against desire. And still that shimmer of power was like a hum in the air.
Then his hands were in her hair, sweeping it back from her face in a gesture of urgency that had her shuddering in anticipation of what was to come. And his mouth left hers to roam her face, to find that throbbing pulse in her throat.
She could drown him. He knew it even as he took more. This outrageous need for her could take him under, somewhere he’d never been. He knew, wherever that was, he would take her with him.
He molded the shape of her with his hands, steeped himself in it. She found his mouth again, avidly. He heard the shudder of her breath as she stepped back. The candlelight washed over her as she reached up, began to unbutton her shirt.
She wore something white and lacy beneath it that seemed to hold her breasts like an offering. There was more white lace when her pants slid down her hips, an alluring triangle that rode low on her belly, high on her legs.
“Women are the canniest creatures,” he mused out loud, and reached out to skim a fingertip over the lace. When she trembled, he smiled. “I like these clothes. Are you always wearing these under the others?”
“No. It depends on my mood.”
“I like this mood.” He took his thumbs, brushed them up over the lace on her breasts.
Her head fell back. “Oh God.”
“That pleasures you. What of this?” He did the same with the lace that sat snug below her belly, and watched the arousal slide over her face.
Soft skin, delicate and smooth. But there was muscle under it. Fascinating. “Just let me touch. Your body is beautiful. Just let me touch.”
She reached back, gripped the bedpost. “Help yourself.”
His fingers skimmed over her, made her skin quiver. Then pressed and made her moan. She could feel her own bones going to liquid, and her muscles to putty as he explored her. She gave herself to it, to the slow, enervating pleasure that was both triumph and surrender.
“Is this the fastener then?”
She opened heavy eyes as he fiddled with the front hook of her bra. But when she started to undo it, he brushed her hands aside.
“I’ll figure it out on my own in a minute. Ah yes, there it is.” As he unhooked it, her breasts spilled out and into his hands. “Clever. Beautiful.” He lowered his head to them, tasted soft, warm flesh.
He wanted to savor; he wanted to rush.
“And the other part? Where is the fastener?” He ran his hands down her.
“They don’t—” And over her. Her breath caught, a half cry as her fingers dug into his shoulders.
“Aye, look at me. Just like that.” He skimmed his hands over the lace, under it. “Glenna Ward, who is mine tonight.”
And she came where she stood, her body exploding and her eyes trapped by his.
Her head went limp on his shoulder as she shuddered, shuddered. “I want you on me, I want you in me.” She dragged at the sweatshirt he wore, drawing it up and away. Now she found muscle and flesh with her hands, with her lips. Now the power seeped back into her as she pulled him with her onto the bed.
“Inside me. Inside me.”
Her mouth crushed hungrily to his, hips arching and offering. He fought with the rest of his clothes, struggled to devour more of her as the heat pumped off them both.
When he plunged into her, the fire roared, and the candle flames shot up like arrows.
Passion and power whipped through them, spurring them on toward madness. Still she locked herself around him, stared at him even as tears glazed her eyes.
A wind stirred her hair, bright as fire against the bed. He felt her gather beneath him, tighten like a bow. When the light burst through him, he could only breathe her name.
She felt alight, as if whatever they had ignited between them burned still. She wondered she didn’t see beams of its gilded light shooting out of her fingertips.
In the hearth, the fire had settled down to a quiet simmer; another afterglow. But the heat that had bloomed from it, and from them, dewed her skin. Even now her heart moved at a gallop.
His head rested there, on her heart, and her hand on his head.
“Have you ever... ”
His lips brushed her breast, lightly. “No.”
She combed her fingers through his hair. “Neither have I. Maybe it was because it was the first time, or because some of what we made earlier was still stored up.”
We’re stronger together. Her own words echoed in her mind.
“Where do we go from here?”
When he lifted his head, she shook hers. “An expression,” she explained. “And it doesn’t matter now. Your bruises are gone.”
“I know. Thank you.”
“I don’t know that I did it.”
“You did. You touched my face when we joined.” He took her hand, brought it to his lips. “There’s magic in your hands, and in your heart. And still your eyes are troubled.”
“Just tired.”
“Do you want me to leave you?”
“No, I don’t.” And wasn’t that the problem? “I want you to stay.”
“Here then.” He shifted, bringing her with him, tucking up sheet and blanket. “I have a question.”
“Mmm.”
“You have a brand, here.” He traced his fingers over the small of her back. “A pentagram. Are witches marked so in this time?”
“No. It’s a tattoo—my choice. I wanted to wear a symbol of what I am, even when I was skyclad.”
“Ah. I mean no disrespect to your purpose, or your symbol, but I found it... alluring.”
She smiled to herself. “Good. Then it performed its secondary purpose.”
“I feel whole again,” he said. “I feel myself again.”
“So do I.”
But tired, he thought. He could hear it in her voice. “We’ll sleep awhile.”
She tilted her head up so their eyes met. “You said when you took me to bed you wouldn’t give me any sleep.”
“This once.”
She rested her head on his shoulder, but didn’t close her eyes, even when he dimmed the candles. “Hoyt. Whatever happens, this was precious.”
“For me as well. And for the first time, Glenna, I believe not only that we must win, but that we can. I believe that because you’re with me.”
Now she closed her eyes for just a moment, on the pang just under her heart. He spoke of war, she thought. And she’d spoken of love.
She woke to rain, and his warmth. Glenna lay, listening to the patter, absorbing the good, natural feel of a man’s body beside hers.
She’d had to lecture herself during the night. What she had with Hoyt was a gift, one that should be treasured and appreciated. There was no point in cursing because it wasn’t enough.
And what good did it do to question why it had happened? To wonder if whatever was driving them to the battleground had brought them together, had ignited that passion and need, and yes, love, because they were stronger with it?
It was enough to feel; she’d always believed that. And only doubted it now because she felt so much.
It was time to go back to being practical, to enjoy what she had when she had it. And to do the job at hand.
She eased away from him, started to get out of bed. His hand closed around her wrist.
“It’s early, and raining. Come, stay in bed.”
She looked over her shoulder. “How do you know it’s early. There’s no clock in here. Got a sundial in your head?”
“Sure a lot of good it would do as it’s pouring rain. Your hair’s like the sun. Come back to bed.”
He didn’t look so serious now, she noted, not with his eyes sleepy and his face shadowed by a night’s growth of beard. What he looked was edible.
“You need a shave.”
He rubbed a hand over his face, felt the stubble. Rubbed his hand over again, and the stubble was gone. “Is that better for you, a stór?”
She reached over, flicked a finger down his cheek. “Very smooth. You could use a decent haircut.”
He frowned, scooped a hand through his hair. “What would be wrong with my hair?”
“It’s gorgeous, but it could use a little shaping. I can take care of that for you.”
“I think not.”
“Oh, don’t trust me?”
“Not with my hair.”
She laughed and rolled over to straddle him. “You trust me with other, and more sensitive parts of you.”
“A different matter entirely.” His hands walked up and cupped her breasts. “What’s the name of the garment you wore over your lovely breasts last night?”
“It’s called a bra, and don’t change the subject.”
“Sure I’m happier discussing your breasts than my hair.”
“Aren’t you cheerful this morning.”
“You put a light in me.”
“Sweet talker.” She picked up a hank of his hair. “Snip, snip. You’ll be a new man.”
“You seem to like the man I am well enough.”
Her lips curved as she lifted her hips. And lowered them to take him into her. The candles that had guttered out sparked. “Just a trim,” she whispered, leaning over him to rub her lips to his. “After.”
He learned the considerable pleasure of showering with a woman, then the fascinating pleasure of watching one dress.
She rubbed creams into her skin, and different ones over her face.
The bra, and what she called panties, were blue today. Like a robin’s egg. Over these she pulled rough pants and the short, baggy tunic she called a sweatshirt. On it were words that spelled out WALKING IN A WICCAN WONDERLAND.
He thought the outer clothes made what she wore beneath a kind of marvelous secret.
He felt relaxed and very pleased with himself. And balked when she told him to sit on the lid of the toilet. She picked up scissors, snapped them together.
“Why would a man of sense allow a woman to come near him with a tool like that?”
“A big, tough sorcerer like you shouldn’t be afraid of a little haircut. Besides, if you don’t like it when I’m done, you can change it back.”
“Why are women always after fiddling with a man?”
“It’s our nature. Indulge me.”
He sighed, and sat. And squirmed.
“Be still, and it’ll be done before you know it. How do you suppose Cian deals with grooming?”
He rolled his eyes up, over, to try to see what she was doing to him. “I wouldn’t know.”
“No reflection must make it a chore. And he always looks perfect.”
Now Hoyt slid his eyes toward hers. “You like the way he looks, do you?”
“You’re almost mirror images, so it’s obvious I do. He has that slight cleft in his chin and you don’t.”
“Where the faeries pinched him. My mother used to say.”
“Your face is a little leaner, and your eyebrows have more of an arch. But your eyes, those mouths and cheekbones—the same.”
He watched hair fall into his lap, and inside the mighty sorcerer, his belly trembled. “Jesus, woman, are you shearing me bald?”
“Lucky for you I like long hair on a man. At least I do on you.” She dropped a kiss on the top of his head. “Yours is like black silk, with just a little wave. You know, in some cultures, when a woman cuts a man’s hair it’s a vow of marriage.”
His head jerked, but she’d anticipated the reaction and moved the scissors. Her laugh, full of fun and teasing, echoed off the bathroom walls. “Joking. Boy, are you easy. Almost done.”
She straddled his legs, standing with hers apart, and her breasts close to his face. He began to think a haircut wasn’t such a hardship after all.
“I liked the feel of a woman.”
“Yes, I seem to recall that about you.”
“No, what I’m meaning is I liked the feel of a woman when I had one. I’m a man, have needs like any other. But it never occupied so much of my mind as it does with you.”
She set the scissors aside, then combed her fingers through his damp hair. “I like occupying your mind. Here, have a look.”
He stood, studied himself in the mirror. His hair was shorter, but not unreasonably. He supposed it fell in a more pleasing shape—though it had seemed fine to him before she’d gone after it.
Still, she hadn’t sheared him like a sheep, and it pleased her.
“It’s well enough, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He finished dressing, and when they went downstairs they found all but Cian in the kitchen.
Larkin was scooping up scrambled eggs. “Good morning to you. The man here has a magician’s hands with eggs.”
“And my shift at the stove’s over,” King announced. “So if you want breakfast, you’re on your own.”
“That’s something I wanted to talk about.” Glenna opened the refrigerator. “Shifts. Cooking, laundry, basic housekeeping. It needs to be spread out among all of us.”
“I’m happy to help,” Moira put in. “If you’ll show me what to do and how to do it.”
“All right, watch and learn. We’ll stick with the bacon and eggs for this morning.” She got to work on it with Moira watching her every move.
“I wouldn’t mind more, while you’re about it.”
Moira glanced at Larkin. “He eats like two horses.”
“Hmm. We’re going to need regular supplies.” She spoke to King now. “I’d say that falls to you or me, as these three can’t drive. Both Larkin and Moira are going to need clothes that fit. If you draw me a map, I can make the next run.”
“There’s no sun today.”
Glenna nodded at Hoyt. “I have protection, and it may clear up.”
“The household needs to run, as you said, so you can draw up your plans. We’ll follow them. But as to other matters, you have to follow. I think no one goes out alone, out of doors, into the village. No one goes out unarmed.”
“Are we to be under siege then, held in by a shower of rain?” Larkin stabbed the air with his fork. “Isn’t it time we showed them we won’t let them set the terms?”
“He has a point,” Glenna agreed. “Cautious but not cowed.”
“And there’s a horse in the stable,” Moira added. “He needs to be tended.”
The fact was Hoyt had intended to do so himself, while the others were busy elsewhere. He wondered now if what he’d told himself was responsibility and leadership was just another lack of trust.
“Larkin and I will tend to the horse.” He sat when Glenna put plates on the table. “Glenna needs herbs and so do I, so we’ll deal with that as well. Cautious,” he repeated. And began to devise how it could be done while he ate.
He strapped on a sword. The rain was a fine drizzle now, the sort he knew could last for days. He could change that. He and Glenna together could bring out sun bright enough to blast the sky.
But the earth needed rain.
He nodded to Larkin, opened the door.
They moved out together, splitting right and left, back-to-back to gauge the ground.
“Be a miserable watch in this weather if they just sit and wait,” Larkin pointed out.
“We’ll stay close together in any case.”
They crossed the ground, searching for shadows and movement. But there was nothing but the rain, the smell of wet flowers and grass.
When they reached the stables, the work was routine for both of them. Mucking out, fresh straw, grain and grooming. Comforting, Hoyt thought, to be around the horse.
Larkin sang as he worked, a cheery air.
“I’ve a chestnut mare at home,” he told Hoyt. “She’s a beauty. It seemed we couldn’t bring the horses through the Dance.”
“I was told to leave my own mare behind. Is it true about the legend? The sword and the stone, and the one who rules Geall? Like the legend of Arthur?”
“It is, and some say it was fashioned from it.” As he spoke, Larkin poured fresh water in the trough. “After the death of the king or queen, the sword is placed back in the stone by a magician. On the day after the burial, the heirs then come, one by one, and try to take it out again. Only one will succeed, and rule all of Geall. The sword is kept in the great hall for all to see, until that ruler dies. And so it is repeated, generation after generation.”
He wiped his brow. “Moira has no brothers, no sisters. She must rule.”
Intrigued, Hoyt stopped to glance over. “If she fails, would it come to you?”
“Spare me from that,” Larkin said with feeling. “I’ve no wish to rule. Bloody nuisance if you’re asking me. Well, he’s set, isn’t he?” He rubbed the stallion’s side. “You’re a handsome devil, that’s the truth. He needs exercise. One of us should ride him out.”
“Not today, I think. But you’re right in that. He needs a run. Still, he’s Cian’s, so it’s for him to say.”
They moved to the door, and as before, stepped out together. “That way.” Hoyt gestured. “There was an herb garden, and may still be. I haven’t walked that way as yet.”
“Moira and I have. I didn’t see one.”
“We’ll have a look.”
It sprang off the roof of the stables, so quickly Hoyt had no chance to draw his sword. And the arrow struck it dead in the heart while it was still in the air.
Ash flew as a second leaped. And a second arrow shot home.
“Would you let us have one for the sport of it!” Larkin shouted to Moira.
She stood in the kitchen doorway, a third arrow already notched. “Then take the one coming from the left.”
“For me,” Larkin shouted at Hoyt.
It was twice his size, and Hoyt started to protest. But Larkin was already charging. Steel struck steel. It clashed and it rang. Twice he saw the thing step back when Larkin’s cross glinted at him. But he had a reach, and a very long sword.
When Hoyt saw Larkin slip on the wet grass, he lunged forward. He swung the sword at the thing’s neck—and met air.
Larkin leaped up, flipped the wooden stake up, caught it neatly. “I was just throwing him off balance.”
“Nicely done.”
“There may be more.”
“There may be,” Hoyt agreed. “But we’ll do what we came to do.”
“I’ve got your back then, if you’ve mine. God knows Moira’s got them both. This hurt it,” he added, touching the cross. “Gave it some trouble anyway.”
“They may be able to kill us, but they won’t be able to turn us while we wear them.”
“Then I’d say that’s a job well done.”