Blood Magick (The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy #3)(33)

In answer the hawk rose up, calling as he circled the field.

“We’ll walk a bit.” Fin dismounted, set Bugs down.

The dog immediately rolled in the grass, barked for the fun of it.

“He’s young yet.” Fin patted Baru’s neck when the horse gave the hound a pitying glance.

Here’s what he’d needed, Fin thought as he walked with the horse. The open, the air. A cold day for certain, but clear and bright for all that.

The hawk went into the stoop, took its prey.

Fin leaned against Baru, gazing out over the green, the brown, the slim columns of smoke rising from chimneys.

And this, he thought, he missed like a limb when he was off wandering. The country of his blood, of his bone, of his heart and spirit. He missed the green, the undulating hills, the gray of the stone, the rich brown of earth turned for planting.

He would leave it again—he would have to when he’d finished what he needed to finish. But he would always come back, pulled to Ireland, pulled to Branna, pulled . . . Iona had said it. Pulled to family.

“They don’t want you here.”

Fin continued to lean on the horse. He’d felt Cabhan come. Maybe had wanted him to.

“You’re mine. They know it. You know it. You feel it.”

The mark on his shoulder throbbed.

“Since the mark came on me, you’ve tried to lure me, draw me. Save your promises and lies, Cabhan. They bore me, and I’m after some air and some open.”

“You come here.” Cabhan walked across the field on a thin sea of fog, black robes billowing, red stone glowing. “Away from them. You come to me.”

“Not to you. Now or ever.”

“My son—”

“Not that.” Anger he’d managed to tamp down boiled up. “Now or ever.”

“But you are.” Smiling, Cabhan pulled the robe down his shoulder, exposed the mark. “Blood of my blood.”

“How many women did you rape before you planted your seed, a seed that brought you a son?”

“It took only the one destined to bear my child. I gave her pleasure, and took more. I will give Branna to you, if she is what you want. She’ll lie with you again, and as often as you choose. Only come to me, join with me, and she can be yours.”

“She’s not yours to give.”

“She will be.”

“Not while I breathe.” Fin held out a hand, palm forward, brought the power up. “Come to me, Cabhan. Blood to blood, you say. Come to me.”

He felt it, that tug-of-war, felt the heat as his power burned. Saw, as Branna had, a flicker of fear. Cabhan took a lurching step forward.

“You do not summon me!”

Cabhan crossed his arms, wrenched them apart. And broke the spell. “They will betray you, shun you. When you lie cold, your blood on the ground, they will not mourn you.”

He folded into the fog, lowered, hunched, formed into the wolf. Fin saw his sword in his mind’s eye, in its sheath in his workshop. And lifting his hand, held it.

Even as he called the others, called his circle, the wolf lunged.

But not at him, not at the man holding a flaming sword and burning with power. It lunged at the little dog quivering in the high grass.

“No!”

Fin leaped, swung. Then met, sliced only fog, and even that died away with the dog bleeding in the grass, his eyes glazed with shock and pain.

“No, no, no, no.” He started to drop to his knees. The hawk called; the horse trumpeted. Both struck out at the wolf that had re-formed behind Fin.

With a howl, it vanished again.

Even as he knelt, Branna was there.

“Oh God.” He reached down, but she took his hands, nudged them away.

“Let me. Let me. My strength is healing, and hounds are mine.”

“His throat. It tore his throat. Harmless, he’s harmless, but it went for him rather than me.”

“I can help. I can help. Fin, look at me, look in me. Fin.”

“I don’t want your comfort!”

“Leave it to her.” Connor crouched down beside him, laid a hand firmly on his shoulder. “Let her try.”

Already grieving, for he felt the life slipping away, he knelt in helpless rage and guilt.

“Here now, here.” Branna crooned it as she laid her hands on the bloodied throat. “Fight with me now. Hear me, and fight to live.”

Bugs’s eyes rolled up. Fin felt the dog’s heart slow.

“He suffers.”

“Healing hurts. He has to fight.” She whipped her gaze to Fin, all power and fury. “Tell him to fight, for he’s yours. I can’t heal him if he lets go. Tell him!”

Though it grieved him to ask, Fin held his hands over Branna’s. Fight.

Such pain. Branna felt it. Her throat burned with it, and her own heart stuttered. She kept her eyes on the eyes of the little hound, poured her power in, and the warmth with it.

The deep first, she thought. Mend and mend what was torn. In the cold field, the wind blowing, sweat beaded on her forehead.

From somewhere, she heard Connor tell her to stop. It was too much, but she felt the pain, the spark of hope. And the great grief of the man she loved.

Look at me, she told the dog. Look in me. In me. See in me.

Bugs whimpered.

“He’s coming back, Branna.” Connor, still scanning the field, still guarding, laid a hand on Branna’s shoulder, gave her what he had.