Morrigan's Cross
Page 42

She showered, dressed, then took a great deal of care with her makeup. She hung amber drops at her ears for strength. And when she made the bed, she put amethyst and rosemary under her pillow. After choosing a candle from her supplies, she set it beside the bed. When she prepared for sleep that night, she would consecrate the candle with oil to repel Lilith and those like her from her dreams.
She would also make a stake, and get a sword from the weapons supply. She wouldn’t be defenseless and open again.
Before she left the room she took a long look at herself in the mirror. She looked alert, she decided, and capable.
She would be strong.
Because she considered it the heart of any home, she went to the kitchen first. Someone had made coffee, and by process of elimination, she figured it had been King. There was evidence someone had eaten. She could smell bacon. But there was no one around, and no dishes in the sink.
It was some small comfort to know whoever had eaten—or at least whoever had cooked—had also tidied up. She didn’t like to live in disorder, but neither would she care to be in charge of all things domestic.
She poured herself a cup from the pot, toyed with making some breakfast. But there was enough of the dream left in her that the sensation of being alone in the house was uncomfortable.
Her next choice was the library, which she thought of as the main artery of the heart. And there, with some relief, she found Moira.
Moira sat on the floor in front of the fire, surrounded by books. Even now she was hunched over one like a student cramming for an exam. She wore a tunic the color of oatmeal with brown pants and her riding boots.
She looked up as Glenna entered, offered a shy smile. “Good morning to you.”
“Good morning. Studying?”
“I am.” The shyness faded so those gray eyes shined. “This is the most marvelous room, isn’t it? We have a great library in the castle at home, but this rivals it.”
Glenna crouched, tapped a finger on a book thick as a beam. Carved into its scrolled leather cover was a single word.
VAMPYRE.
“Boning up?” she asked. “Studying the enemy?”
“It’s wise to know all you can about whatever you can. Not all the books I’ve read so far agree on all things, but there are some elements on which they do.”
“You could ask Cian. I imagine he could tell you whatever you wanted to know.”
“I like to read.”
Glenna only nodded. “Where did you get the clothes?”
“Oh. I went out this morning, early, found my pack.”
“Alone?”
“I was safe enough, as I kept to the bright path. They can’t come out in the sunlight.” She looked toward the windows. “There was nothing left of the ones that attacked us last night. Even the ash was gone.”
“Where is everyone else?”
“Hoyt went up to his tower to work, and King said he would go into the town for supplies now that there are more of us. I’ve never seen a man so big. He cooked food for us, and there was juice from a fruit. Orange. It was wonderful. Do you think I could take some of the seeds of the orange when we go back to Geall?”
“I don’t see why not. And the others?”
“Larkin, I imagine, is still sleeping. He tends to avoid the mornings as if they were the plague. The vampyre is in his room, I would think.” Moira rubbed her finger over the carved word on the book. “Why does he stand with us? I can find nothing in the books to explain it.”
“Then I guess you can’t find out everything from books. Is there anything else you need for now?”
“No. Thanks.”
“I’m going to grab something to eat, then go up to work. I imagine whenever King gets back, we’ll start whatever torture session he has in mind.”
“Glenna... I wanted to thank you for last night. I was so tired, and upset. I feel so out of my place.”
“I know.” Glenna put her hand over Moira’s. “I think in a way, we all do. Maybe that’s part of the plan, taking us out of our place, putting us together so we find ourselves, what there is in us—individually and together—to fight this thing.”
She rose. “Until it’s time to move, we’re going to have to make this our place.”
She left Moira to the books and returned to the kitchen. There she found what was left of a loaf of brown bread and slathered butter on a slice. Damned if she’d worry about calories at this point. She nibbled on it as she climbed the stairs to the tower.
The door was closed. She nearly knocked before she reminded herself it was her work area, too, and no longer Hoyt’s solitary domain. So she balanced the slice of bread on the mug of coffee, unlatched the door.
He wore a shirt the color of faded denim with black jeans and scarred boots, and still managed to look like a sorcerer. It wasn’t just the rich and flowing black hair, she thought, or those intense blue eyes. It was the power that fit him more truly than the borrowed clothes.
Irritation crossed his face first when he glanced at her. She wondered if it was habitual, that quick annoyance at being interrupted or disturbed. Then it cleared, and she found herself being carefully studied.
“So, you’re up then.”
“Apparently.”
He went back to work, pouring some port-colored liquid from a kind of beaker into a vial. “King went for provisions.”
“So I’m told. I found Moira in the library, reading, from the looks of it, every book in there.”
So, it was going to be awkward, she realized as he continued to work in silence. Better to get past that. “I was going to apologize for disturbing you last night, but that’s just an indulgence on my part.” She waited, one beat, then two before he stopped to look over at her. “So you could tell me not to worry about it, that of course it was all right. I was frightened and upset.”
“That would be true enough.”
“It would, and since we both know all that, indulgent. So I won’t apologize. But I will thank you.”
“It’s of no matter.”
“It is, for me, on several levels. You were there when I needed you, and you calmed me down. Made me feel safe. You showed me the sun.” She set the mug down so her hands would be free as she crossed to him.
“I jumped into your bed in the middle of the night. Naked. I was vulnerable, hysterical. I was defenseless.”