Fin turned away, walked to the fire, stared into it.
It was Boyle who moved to Branna, put an arm around her waist. “Come on now, darling. You’ll sit down and have your tea. You’d do better with some whiskey in it.”
“My sensibilities aren’t damaged. I’m not so delicate as that. But thank you. Thank all of you for coming so quickly.”
“Not quick enough.”
She gave Connor’s arm a squeeze when he sat beside her. “That’s likely my doing as well, and I’ll confess it, as Meara—and rightfully—has shamed me into bare truth. I wanted just a moment or two, and took it before I called for you. And before you all rain down on my head, itwasbut a moment or two, and I had good reason.”
“Good reason?” Fin turned back. “Not to call your circle?”
“For a moment,” she repeated. “I’m well protected.”
Rage, pure and vicious, burned in his eyes. “Not so well he couldn’t put his hands on you, and leave marks behind.”
“My own fault. I’d hoped he’d change into the wolf, and he did. The hound is mine, and a wolf is the same. I thought I might be able to pull out the name of the demon, now that we know we’re looking for one. But it wasn’t long enough, and all I found was the black, and the greed. I need longer. I believe, I promise you, I could dig out the name if I had longer.”
She picked up her tea, sipped, and found it strong enough to battle a few sorcerers on its own. And that was fine with her.
“He came as an old man, looking ill and sick on the side of the road. He thought to trick me, and did—but only for a handful of seconds, and only because I’m a healer and it’s my call and my duty to help those who need it.”
“Which he knew very well,” Connor said.
“Of course. But he persists in thinking of women, whatever their power, as less, as weak, and as foolish. So I turned the trick on him, pretended I thought him an old helpless man, then knocked him head over arse.
“It’s true I should have called for you right at that moment, and you have my word on it, I won’t take even that little time again before I do. He did what I hoped, as I said, came at me as the wolf.”
She took them through it, left out no detail, then set the tea aside.
Connor drew her tight against him. “Feed his cock to the ravens, will you?”
“It’s what came to me at the time.”
“And the stone?”
“Brilliantly bright at the start of it. And bright again when he took hold of me. But when my rain burned him, it went muddy.”
She took another breath. “And there came a kind of madness in his eyes. He called me Sorcha. He looked at me, and he saw her, as Fin said when he saw me in the cave. It’s still Sorcha for him.”
“Centuries.” Eyes narrowed, Boyle nodded. “Being what he is, wanting what he wants and never getting it. It would breed a madness, and she’s the center of it for him.”
“And now you are,” Fin finished. “You have the look of her. I’ve enough to see his thoughts to know he sees her in you.”
“She is in me, but there was a confusion in that madness. And confusion is a weakness. Any weakness is an advantage for us.”
“I saw him, glimpses when I took out a guided this morning,” Meara said.
“I saw him, too, on one of mine. I didn’t have a chance to tell anyone.” Iona puffed out a breath. “He’s feeling strong again, and getting bolder.”
“Easier to end him when he’s not hiding,” Boyle pointed out. “I have to get back to the stables. I can spare either Meara or Iona if you need, Branna.”
“I’m fine now, and I... Oh bloody hell!” She pushed to her feet. “I’d been marketing, and all I bought is still in the car.”
“I’ll see to it,” Connor told her.
“And put everything where I won’t find it? I bought a fine cut of beef, and had in mind to roast it.”
“With the little potatoes and carrots and onions all roasting with it?”
