“How are you here?”
“I’d just saddled Alastar to ride him over when he let out a bloody war cry and bolted for the fence. I barely had time to jump on his back before we went over it. Let me look at you.” He grabbed her, spun her around. “You’re not hurt? You’re sure of it?”
“No. I mean yes, I’m sure. Alastar heard me.” She laid a hand on the horse’s neck. “They all heard me,” she murmured as the hawk watched her, as Kathel’s tail gave one quick thump. And her cousins pulled up in Connor’s truck, spewing dirt and gravel with the slam of brakes.
“They...” She paused as Fin’s truck, then Meara’s sped into the stable yard. “They all heard me. He couldn’t stop that. It couldn’t stop that from getting through.”
“What the bloody, buggering hell happened?” Boyle demanded.
“I’ll tell you. All of you,” she said, speaking to the group. “But we need to check the horses. He didn’t hurt them. I’d know if he did. But they’re afraid.”
She brought Alastar with her, felt the need to keep him close as she went back inside.
They would purify the ring, she thought. Branna would see to it.
She soothed the horses, one by one, and so doing soothed herself. By the time the stable hands arrived to see to the morning routine, she huddled with the rest, crowded in Boyle’s little office, and told the tale.
“There’s a sexuality, on the most elemental level,” she added. “He uses it like a weapon. It’s powerful, and it pulls. But more, he was stronger this time. Maybe he’s been storing it up somehow. I don’t know the answer, but I know when he hit the shield, it cracked. It wouldn’t hold him back.”
“So you removed it, took him straight out the doors. Clever,” Fin told her.
“That’s what he said. Right before he promised to spare all our lives if I gave him my power.”
“He’s a liar,” Branna reminded her.
“I know it. I know. But the blood on my hands.” Fighting a fresh shudder, she pressed her palms together. “It felt real, and it felt like yours. He knows I’m still the weak spot.”
“He’s wrong, and so are you if you believe it.” With the lack of space, Boyle couldn’t pace off the anger, so he just balled his fists into his pockets. “There’s nothing weak in you.”
“He wanted to scare me, and tempt me. He managed both.”
“And what did you do about it?”
She nodded. “I like to think I would have, could have kept doing it if all of you hadn’t come so quickly. But the point is I’m still his focus. Take what’s mine, and he believes he can take the rest.”
“So we’ll use that. We will,” Fin said before Boyle could object. “The slightest adjustment to the plan, and he’ll see her as vulnerable, see it as the time and place to close in, and have it done.”
“It’s more complicated,” Branna began.
“And since when have a few complications buggered you up?”
“More dangerous,” Connor added.
“If we’re in it, we’re in it.” Meara shrugged. “Today proves Iona can’t even come to work in the morning without a risk. Why should she live that way? Or any of us?”
“The next time he might hurt the horses,” Iona added. “To damage me, to distract me. I won’t have that. I couldn’t live with that. What adjustments?”
“He thinks you’ll go alone tomorrow, to the ruins.”
Iona stared at Boyle, saw the fury behind his eyes. “I’m bait. But bait with knowledge and power. And a very strong circle.”
Before Boyle could curse, Branna laid a hand on his arm. “She’s never alone, never will be. You’ve my word, and the word of all of us here.”
She gave his arm a rub, then considered. “It could be done. I think it could be done well enough.”
“You’ll work with me on just that today then?”
Branna looked at Fin, fought her nasty internal war. “I will, for Iona. For the circle.”
