Morrigan's Cross
Page 43

“I don’t think the last is true.”
“At that moment it was. It won’t be again. You could have had me. We both know that.”
There was a long beat of silence that acknowledged the simple truth more truly than any words. “And what manner of man would I be to have taken you at such a time? To have used your fear for my own needs?”
“A different one from what you are. I’m grateful to the one you are.” She skirted the worktable, rose to her toes to kiss both of his cheeks. “Very. You gave me comfort, Hoyt, and you gave me sleep. And you left the fire burning. I won’t forget it.”
“You’re better now.”
“Yes. I’m better now. I was caught off guard, and I won’t be the next time. I wasn’t prepared for her, and I will be the next time. I didn’t take precautions, even the simplest ones because I was tired.” She wandered to the fire he kept burning low. “Sloppy of me.”
“Aye. It was.”
She cocked her head, smiled at him. “Did you want me?”
He got busy again. “That’s not to the point.”
“I’ll take that as a yes, and promise the next time I jump into your bed, I won’t be hysterical.”
“The next time you jump into my bed, I won’t give you sleep.”
She choked out a laugh. “Well, just so we understand each other.”
“I don’t know that I understand you at all, but that doesn’t stop the wanting of you.”
“It’s mutual, on both counts. But I think I’m beginning to understand you.”
“Did you come here to work, or just to distract me?”
“Both, I guess. Since I’ve accomplished the latter, I’ll ask what you’re working on there.”
“A shield.”
Intrigued she moved closer. “More science than sorcery.”
“They’re not exclusive, but joined.”
“Agreed.” She sniffed at the beaker. “Some sage,” she decided, “and clove. What have you used for binding?”
“Agate dust.”
“Good choice. What sort of shield are you after?”
“Against the sun. For Cian.”
She flicked her gaze to his, but he didn’t meet it. “I see.”
“We risk attack if we go out at night. He dies if he exposes himself to sunlight. But if he had a shield, we could work and train more efficiently. If he had a shield, we could hunt them by day.”
She said nothing for a moment. Yes, she was beginning to understand him. This was a very good man, one who held himself to high standards. So he could be impatient, irritable, even autocratic.
And he loved his brother very much.
“Do you think he misses the sun?”
Hoyt sighed. “Wouldn’t you?”
She touched a hand to his arm. A good man, she thought again. A very good man who would think of his brother. “What can I do to help?”
“Maybe I begin to understand you as well.”
“Is that so?”
“You have an open heart.” Now he looked at her. “An open heart and a willing mind. They’re difficult to resist.”
She took the vial from him, set it down. “Kiss me, would you? We both want that, and it makes it hard to work. Kiss me, Hoyt, so we settle down.”
There might have been amusement, just a sprinkle of it in his voice. “Kissing will settle us down?”
“Won’t know unless we try.” She laid her hands on his shoulders, let her fingers play with his hair. “But I know, right this minute, I can’t think of anything else. So do me a favor. Kiss me.”
“A favor then.”
Her lips were soft, a yielding warmth under his. So he was gentle, holding her, tasting her the way he’d yearned to the night before. He stroked a hand down her hair, down the length of her back so the feel of her mingled in his senses with her flavor and her scent.
What was inside him opened, and eased.
She skimmed her fingers over the strong edge of his cheekbone and gave herself completely to the moment. To the comfort and the pleasure, and the shimmer of heat flowing under both.
When their lips parted, she pressed her cheek to his, held there a moment. “I feel better,” she told him. “How about you?”
“I feel.” He stepped back, then brought her hand to his lips. “And I suspect that I’ll be needing to be settled again. For the good of the work.”
She laughed, delighted. “Anything I can do for the cause.”
They worked together for more than an hour, but each time they exposed the potion to sunlight, it boiled.
“A different incantation,” Glenna suggested.
“No. We need his blood.” He looked at her over the beaker. “For the potion itself, and to test it.”
Glenna considered. “You ask him.”
There was a thud at the door, then King pushed it open. He wore camo pants and an olive green T-shirt. He’d tied his dreadlocks back into a thick, fuzzy tail. And looked, Glenna thought, like an army all by himself.
“Magic hour’s over. Fall in outside. Time to get physical.”
If King hadn’t been a drill sergeant in another life, karma was missing a step. Sweat dripped into Glenna’s eyes as she attacked the dummy Larkin had fashioned out of straw and wrapped in cloth. She blocked with her forearm as she’d been taught, then plunged the stake into the straw.
But the dummy kept coming, flying on the pulley system King had rigged, and knocked her flat on her back.
“And you’re dead,” he announced.
“Oh, bullshit. I staked it.”
“Missed the heart, Red.” He stood over her, huge and pitiless. “How many chances you figure you’re going to get? You can’t get the one in front of you, how are you going to get the three coming at your back?”
“All right, okay.” She got up, brushed herself off. “Do it again.”
“That’s the spirit.”
She did it again, and again, until she despised the straw dummy as much as she had her tenth-grade history teacher. Disgusted, she swung around, picked up a sword with both hands, and hacked the thing to pieces.
When she was done, there was no sound but her own labored breathing and Larkin’s muffled laugh.
“Okay.” King rubbed his chin. “Guess he’s pretty damn dead. Larkin, you want to put together another one? Let me ask you something, Red.”