Blood Magick (The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy #3)(60)

“What is it?” Iona demanded. “What don’t you want them to see?”

“I’d as soon my brother and your fiancé don’t get a gander of my breasts.” So saying she stripped off the sweater. And on Meara’s hiss of breath, the bra.

“Oh, Branna,” Iona murmured, lifted her hands. “Let me.”

“If you’d lay your hands over mine.” Branna covered her own breasts. “I could do it myself, but it’ll be faster and easier with your help.”

Branna searched inside herself, brought up the warmth of healing, sighed into it when Iona joined her, and again when Meara just put an arm around her waist.

“It’s not deep. He only had me for a fraction of a second.”

“It hurts deep.”

Branna nodded at Iona. “It does, or did. It’s easing already, and my own fault for giving him even that small opening.”

“I think it’ll go faster, hurt less if you look into me. If you boost what I can do with what you have. Just for this, okay? Look at me, Branna. Look into me. The hurt lifts out, let it go. The bruising eases. Feel the warm.”

She let it go, opened herself, twined what she had with Iona.

“It’s clear. He’s left no mark on or in you. You’re . . .” Iona paused, still searching for injury. And her eyes widened.

“Oh, Branna.”

“Ah, well, I supposed that’s next.” She unhooked her pants, let them fall to reveal the streaks of bruising up her inner thighs.

“Bloody bastard,” Meara muttered and took Branna’s hand in a strong grip.

“It was the fog, a kind of sly attack. More a brush than a squeeze, so it’s not as dark or painful. Have at it, Iona, if you wouldn’t mind.”

She let herself go again, let herself drift on the warmth Iona gave her until even the echo of pain faded.

“He wanted to frighten me, to attack me on the level women fear most. But he didn’t frighten me.” Calmly Branna hooked her pants again, slipped into her bra, then her sweater. “He enraged me, which gave him the same chance to rush my defenses and find that one small chink. It won’t happen a second time.”

She turned to the mirror over the sink, gave herself a hard look—and a very light glamour.

“There, that’s done the job. Thank you, both of you. I’ll see if Fin’s made a decent cup of tea and tell you all what happened.”

She stepped out. Connor stopped pacing the foyer, strode straight to her, caught her up against him.

“I’m fine, I promise. I . . . No prying into my head, Connor, you’ll only annoy me.”

“I’ve a right to be certain my sister’s unharmed.”

“I’ve said I am.”

“He left the mark of his hands, black as pitch, on her breasts.”

At Meara’s words, Branna twisted around, astonished by the betrayal.

“There’s no holding things back.” Meara stiffened her spine. “It’s not fair or right, and not smart, either. You’d say so yourself if it was me or Iona.”

When Connor started to pull up her sweater, Branna slapped his hands away. “Mind yourself! Iona and I took care of it. Ask her yourself if you can’t take my word.”

“There’s not a trace of him in or on her,” Iona confirmed. “But he’d put his marks on her, up her thighs, on her breasts.”

“He put his hands on you.” Fin spoke with a quiet that roared like thunder.

Branna closed her eyes a moment. She hadn’t sensed him come up behind her. “I let him rile me, so it’s my own fault.”

“You said you weren’t hurt.”

“I didn’t know I was until I got back here and had a look. It was nothing near what Connor dealt with, or Boyle, or you. He bruised me, and where he did is a violation as he meant it to be.”

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, it was but 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.